The Wild Campione
by kujikiri21
Summary: At an immensely young age, Harry Potter was able to defeat and kill a Heretic God. This is his journey as a Campione.
1. Prologue

The Wild Campione

I Do Not Own Campione! or Harry Potter (unfortunately).

Prologue

_"A Campione – a Godslayer – is a supreme ruler._

_"Since he can kill a celestial being, he can therefore call on the sacrosanct, divine powers wielded by the gods._

_"A Campione – a Godslayer – is a lord._

_"Since the power to kill a deity is in his hands, he therefore looms over all mortals on Earth._

_"A Campione – a Godslayer – is a devil._

_"Since of all mortals who live in the world, none can assume a power to match his!"_

_Forest in Surrey_

The boy ran.

Against the cold wind that blew through the frozen forest he ran.

He ran away from a piercing light that dogged his footsteps. His tattered trainers moving swiftly across the uneven trail, crushing the snow beneath them. His small, thin and almost malnourished form, clad in thin and tattered clothes whipped his head around as he heard the eerie howls of the wolves approaching.

His pale face scrunched with fear and he looked wildly around with fear-filled and glass framed emerald green eyes, his black hair ruffling with his motion and the harsh wind.

He scrambled through the undergrowth, only to duck and roll sideways as a roaring beam of fire passed where his body was. A loud voice roared through the air as he kept running.

"Come out, Boy!" the voice roared with the force of a thousand furnaces, "Don't make this difficult!"

The boy kept running, his fear lending him wings. As he ran he burst through the forest to enter a clearing. He did not and kept moving only to react to tingle in his neck that allowed to dodge his horrid uncles blows and swerved left and avoided the slavering jaws of a massive black wolf. Its burning red eyes showed rage at missing his prey and chased the boy who kept running toward the lone oak in the otherwise empty glen, as its kin soon appeared out of the dark forest on all sides of the glen.

The young child barely managed to reach the oak and desperately leap for a low hanging branch almost eight foot off the ground. Through some miracle, he managed to grasp the branch and pull himself up to again avoid the snapping jaws. He didn't stop and climbed higher away from the range of the growling, snarling and leaping wolf pack. The boy, however knew he was not safe.

Their master was coming.

A large figure emerged from the trees. Its skin was a coal black with a bestial countenance and massive two sided axe in his hand. Around him flickered tounges of flame, seeming to taste the air.  
The being looked at its prey with eyes the colour of gold with a bestial slit in the pupil. It calmly began to approach, idly swing his axe to and fro. His wolves parting for him but still circling the great oak.

When it came to the base of the oak it locked gazes with the boy. Young fearful green met ancient feral gold.

"Come down, child," it growled, its voice rumbling, "you have nowhere to run and hide, nor do you have the strength to fight me. If you don't come down of your free will, I will burn you to ashes where you cower."

As if to emphasise it's statement the flames around flared high and bright making the child shy away on instinct.

The boy kept contact with his hunter's eyes. He saw no mercy or humanity in those eyes.

Only an endless hunger.

Quelling his racing heart, he began to descend. His steps were slow and uncertain but the beasts and their master waited patiently for boy to reach the ground. As he descended, the boy, by some inborn instinct, grasped a broken and sharp piece of a branch from the oak and slid it down his baggy sleeve, hiding it from the view of the being that hunted him down for no seeming reason.

At last the child stepped foot onto the snowy ground beneath the tree and faced his pursuers again. The being seemed to give a delighted grin at his seeming capitulation to its desires and began to stride forward again until it was less than a foot from the boy, towering over the small but no longer fearful frame of the child.

"You have power child," the being spoke gleefully, " power and strength and cunning. Given a little more growth, you would have been a warrior born and become the hunter instead of the hunted," it sighed mockingly as if mourning the loss of such a scenario, "but I have no desire to see threats become reality but do not worry small one," it spoke softly raising its great axe to deliver a great blow, flames and heat rising and wrapping around it causing it to glow a bright white, "when you die, I will see that you become a great warrior beneath my command." and he swung the axe down to split the boys skull.

As his death came down, the world seemed to slow for the child. He saw every muscle twitch, heard every breath in the glen, felt the slightest of breezes and smelt the slightest of scents. His fear disappeared and was replaced with a cold primal instinct that was forgotten by the majority of humanity.

Kill or be killed.

The primal instinct made him suddenly leap toward his attacker. His body was suddenly filled with a power that had always been with him but was never conciously known or understood. As he passed the axe blade in mid leap, he felt the deep burning cut going down his back. Pain rocketed through him but he had felt worse in his aunt and uncles care and ignored it in favour of pulling out the sharp branch from his sleeve. His power rushed into the piece of wood making it stronger, more powerful.

Making it Deadly.

With a primal scream that echoed his pain and fear and anger, the small nine year old boy slammed the now glowing sharp branch into the heart of the surprised being. The whole clearing froze as if in disbelief at the child's actions. The boy hung against beings chest for a moment, held up by his own weakening strength and his grasp on the branch now piercing the heart of the being, before his grip loosened and he fell into the cold snow, glaring angrily at the being of fire as his life blood flowed out of the massive wound along his back, leaving unable to do more than that.

The being stumbled back in shock as it wavered and felt the injury.

"H-how did you?" it stuttered as it swayed, "I c-c-c-cannot be-," it spit up blood as the wolves that had crowded around him wavered and vanished, "It is ii-i-i-impossible to ha-harm me." It finally slumped to its knees and then to the ground. By chance, its face now stared at the boy. The boy who dealt him a mortal blow after being struck by a mortal blow.

It was silent for a moment before a bloody chuckle came from the beings throat.

"A boy," it choked, "A mere boy, barely more than an infant, has struck down the great Dabog. With a stick of mistletoe from an oak," its choking laughter quietly filled the glen as the mere boy looked dazed and confused.

Dabog smiled bloodily through his pain to his killer.

"You have achieved greatness boy," Dabog spoke quietly as his body began to turn to a golden dust, "Before I pass, tell me the name of the one who has slain me."

The boy looked at Dabog despite how hard he found it to focus, his lack of blood bringing him to death's door.

"Harry Potter," the boy answered quietly as his vision began to darken.

Dabog grinned at the answer, despite only his neck and head being left.

"Live long, Harry Potter," Dabog chuckled, "Live long, grow strong and prepare yourself. For this will not be our last meeting."

With these final words Dabog faded into dust.

Harry Potter stared blankly at the spot before his strength faded and darkness to over his vision.

And so died the Boy - Who - Lived.

_Netherworld_

Harry drifted in a white nothingness as a seeming teenager with purple hair looked on.

Her eyes were filled with sympathy as she looked at him.

"A child who has not remembered a mother's love. Who has not received kindness. Who sees the world from the behind a pane of glass crafted from pain and fear and marked by cruel destiny,"

Her face firmed up in determination.

'Destiny can go to Tartarus' she thought.

"I have decided. I, Pandora, the witch who brought forth all disasters and a shred of hope, do now declare this child to be my new son.

"Let everyone present grant their blessing and their hatred to this child. The seventh Campione - possessing the destiny of the wildest and youngest of the devil kings, please bestow the sacred spell words upon this child!

"By the black art that I and Epimetheus left behind this is the sacred birth of an illegitimate child, shrouded in darkness, born of a fool and a witch. A secret of usurpation only made possible through the sacrifice of a god.

I, the all-giving woman Pandora, declare that you shall be reborn as a Campione. The god-slayer, the king of kings, the Campione,"

Pandora then gently kissed the brow of her youngest son, causing him to glow brightly and an inky black cloud to scream as it was ripped from its host. Harry then began to slowly fade from the Netherworld back to reality.

"Live well and happily, my dearest child," Pandora spoke softly with a gentle, hopeful smile upon her face as she disappeared deeper into the netherworld.

_Forest Clearing_

The cold and shallowly breathing body of Harry lay motionless as a group of people prowled around the area.

"Sweet Mary," gasped one of the men who stumbled across Harry, the moonlight glinting off of the badge identifying him as part of the Greenwich Assembly as he shifted back in shock, "Howard! Get your medical arse over here! We have a casualty!"

Howard rushed to man's side and slid to his knees before Harry. Swiftly the medic incanted a medical scanning spell on the child.

Only for it to break.

Blinking in surprise, the man tried again with the same result.

A slow suspicion crept into the medic's mind as he turned to the other four people searching the clearing.

"Jack, Will, Sam, Emily! Did you find any traces of a Heretic God?"

The squad froze in their tracks as ice ran down their spines before they all quickly used the general spell for identifying Divine traces.

The whole clearing glowed golden along with many traces through the woods.

It had come back positive.

Not needing to be told Howard quickly stripped off his jacket and wrapped it around the child and quickly stood up with the now wrapped child in his arms.

"We're leaving," he called, "Everyone is to return to base. Immediately."

Bewildered the others all began to follow the medic and squad leader through the forest.

"What's going on Howard?" Emily asked as she hurried to catch up with his long strides as they carefully navigated the forest in the dark.

The man was quiet as moved as quickly as he safely could before he answered.

The answer created a fear and disbelief among the squad.

"The child in my arms is a newborn Campione."

**Excerpt from British Reports Concerning the Verification of the new Campione, Beginning of the 21st Century**

In Slavic Mythology, Dabog was deity that had many roles and names.

Originally he was considered the wolf god and grandfather of the Serbs. He was also considered the deity of the Underworld and Precious stones and metal and thus a patron god of miners. Also it is said when a Serbian died he was welcomed into Dabog's castle of glass to be transformed into a warrior of the dead to await the time when the last Serb died and ride out on wolves in a Slavic version of Doomsday.

An alternate name for him, Dazbog, was credited with being a solar deity that lived in the east and rode a chariot of twelve horses of which three were made of precious metals. He was also known as the 'giving god' which indicates a strong link to fertility and health.

He was also considered a smith deity as Svarog, chief deity of the Slavic Pantheon, gave him the secret of steel and skill at the forge from which he created a great axe. This is further emphasised by his being depicted as a lame black wolf as many smiths in ancient times used arsenic in forging which can cause lameness.

When Christianity was making inroads amongst the Serbian populace Dabog became a demonic being associated with Satan.

All in all, this deity could be considered either of Earth or Steel.

What other forms this deity wore is unknown.

It was through this deity's death that Harry Potter became a Campione at nine years of age.

**[Report on Harry Potter], Compilation of the Greenwich assembly**

As mentioned in the above report, Harry Potter was able to seize the power of Dabog. In addition to this it has been confirmed that the young King was of the Wizarding sect though there was no indication that he was aware of it. Further, it has been understood that His Majesty is the vaunted Boy-Who-Lived that had brought about the of Voldemort crisis almost a decade previously.

This makes him the first recorded Campione that comes from a Wizarding sect background and by far the youngest. It is unknown how this will affect the young King.

It has also been confirmed that His Majesty has obtained several Authorities from Dabog. This indicates that there may be several limitations to them. In addition, his young age may be a severe disadvantage to Harry despite his extreme maturity.

Investigations are being made into the possible negative reasons for such maturity.

As such he does not have absolute authority,

However, everyone, please do not forget.

Even though his powers seemed to be incomplete, it cannot be denied that he was a Campione. Towards fragile humans such as mages like me, he was still a devil standing above us.

Furthermore, Harry Potter, at this point in time, is without any knowledge of magic or spells.

This might prove the theory of the person who said thus;

instead of claiming that the highest presence among the mages are the campione, it is more correct to say that in the end, mages are mere imitations of the campione.

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Hey folks hope you enjoyed the chapter of my new story. Sorry if I am not so good on action scenes. For those who are curious Harry was able to obtain three (3) Authorities from the Heretic God Dabog. Also as a minor gift during the Campione process he was able to retain the parseltongue gift and associated abilities (wink, wink) from Moldyshorts soul fragment. He also has now linked with the Greenwich Assembly. So do not expect him to run into the Pompous Prince anytime soon. Although he will be friends with Alice and may help her down the road o.- . For those who are thinking of the traits of the HG, I left a small clue on parts of the chain that make up Dabog. In the first part of the next chapter I will list the links that make him up and the Authorities that our intrepid hero obtained.  
Please review,  
kujikiri21


	2. Chapter 1

The Wild Campione

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Campione

Message to readers  
Hey all,  
Thanks for those who reviewed. To touch upon a few points, it will be a Manipulative!Dumbledore since I really dislike the character since he pretty much led canon harry to the slaughter like a hog. The difference between Wizarding World and Mage Associations will be explained in time. Also, for your consumption, here are the links for the Heretic God Dabog.

Dabog - Dazbog - Baldur / Vali - Fenrir

The Authorities are:

[Vengeful Guardian of Radiance]  
This Authority stems from the Sun that Baldur represented and his conditional invulnerability and subsequent death as well as the vengeance of his death carried out by Vali. It interacts with Harry's desire for protection and ability to protect himself. It has two forms, Passive and Active. Passively, it ensures that no projectile is able to touch him by diverting their path in a sphere of invisible power radiating seven meters away from him, forcing his adversaries to fight him in melee combat. For Active use, he must have been wounded by another first. A grown warrior made of light of the sun forms around him, similar to Susanoo in Naruto but by far smaller and focused on light. Harry is able to make it mirror his movements and it is also able to create weapons of light for it to use. It also increases the strength, speed and reaction time of Harry. Harry will also be able to take it to an Avatar state allowing him to become light made flesh ie he becomes the warrior with all its abilities of light crafting. He will use this in battle most times to offset his childish form until he ages enough to not need it. Incidentally Harry will age at a normal wizarding rate until he reaches full maturity and from there it his Campione vitality will keep him youthful. Further use of the Authority will allow him to summon weapons of light only instead of the full guardian. This Authority will be the first that he masters.

[Shepherd of Wolves]  
Allows him to summon Divine Wolves with Anti - 'Light' rather than solar abilities similar to Voban. Furthermore, if they are trapped, they will be able to phase through the obstacle. It will also allow him to become a Wolf-Man in Avatar form. In addition, as this Authority stems from a higher being connected to Wolves (Fenrir, Dabog) in comparison to Voban (Apollo), it will allow him to overpower Voban's comparable Authority as Voban's comes from a lesser source. It will also allow him to control and command natural werewolves.

[Abundant Earth]  
This Authority allows him access to the treasures of the earth. In particular, metal, gems and fruit and vegetables. To create gems and metals and make plant food. The limitation is that he can only change and equal mass of earth into and equal mass of gems and metal. This is the same in the case of wood for fruit and vegetables. In addition, he can shape how it comes into existence ie he can form a ruby statue of a horse from a basalt block of equal weight. At the expense of sealing for a night and day, he can animate the statues he has changed or made as a link to the horses of precious metal which drew Dazbog's solar chariot. At the expense of sealing this Authority for a night and day, he can also bring forth [Golden Apples] which are fruit with extremely powerful healing and restoration properties. These apples were supplied by Idunn to all Nordic Gods.

Well now that is over with. Let the show begin!

Chapter 1

Greenwich Assembly Embassy, London

Harry gradually began to awaken. His now healthy and slimly muscled form twitching slightly on the grand four poster bed beneath the comfortable cotton blankets. It was quite the improvement from a mouldy matress and threadbare blanket in the cupboard under the stairs he had at the Dursley's.

The young wizard's eyes finally fluttered open, his still tired mind filled with thoughts of running from that strange being.

'No,' he thought suddenly with a furrowed brow as a memory of a blackened bestial face in the snow that chuckled surfaced, 'Dabog.'

His thoughts were interrupted as heard a soft knock on the door of the room that he just now noticed he was in. His widened eyes glanced around the luxurious room and rather decadent bed he was in. His surprise was such that he ignored the knocking once more.

Finally a voice from outside the room brought his attention back to the present situation.

"Your Majesty?" the voice called in question, causing him to frown again (Majesty?'), "if we could please enter? We have much to talk about."

Harry frowned hard again and weighed the possibilities in his mature mind. He was in an unknown place without knowledge of how he got there and an unknown person, that called him _Majesty_ of all things, was asking to enter the room to speak with him.

It sounded like something out of fairytale to him.

Nonetheless, he drew himself up as far as his small frame and bed would permit and carefully pasted the blank mask that he wore around the Dursley's upon his face.

"Enter," he spoke, the uncertainty and nervousness nowhere in his voice, nor upon his face.

The door to the opulent room opened inwards as a distinguished middle aged man entered along with a younger woman and a teenage girl.

The teenager drew Harry's attention first for some reason. Her platinum blonde hair and soft light green eyes, even lighter than his own, framed by a pale heart shaped face and a gentle smile. Her body slim and petite by most standards yet still had the curves which drew many an admiring eye. Yet at the same time, to Harry at least, something about her screamed 'fake' or absent. She was dressed in a normal skirt and blouse with white being the predominant colour.

The woman, by contrast, was night to the girl's day. Her long and straight black hair reached mid-back and was tied in a loose braid. Her deep blue eyes looked at him with slight approval after they had examined him, as though he was student who had done well under her stern but fair tutelage. Her lightly tanned facial features were sharp but still retained a softness to stay attractive. The walk of her rather tall and curvy body drew his notice however. Some part of him compared that walk to the tigers that he had seen on the mandatory school field trip (the only reason the Dursley's allowed him to go). Assured, confident and predatory. It was if she was saying 'I am Queen here. Who dare challenges me?'. The look was finished by a sleek dark purple one piece dress that was rather form fitting with slits up the sides to allow her long legs freedom of movement.

Definitely not a woman to annoy.

The word 'Giant' and 'Soldier' came to mind when he examined the man more closely. His short cropped salt and pepper hair sat atop a slightly lined but rugged face. His skin was just as dark as the woman's with a short and sharp silvery moustache below the icy blue eyes that held determination, discipline and a slight bit of warmth and mischief. His clothing was uniform dark blue with silver buttons. This, along with the various medals upon his breast and his straight bearing, gave the impression of a General.

The giant thought came from the fact that he was over seven feet tall and densely muscled.

_Definitely_ not a man to annoy.

The girl was the first to speak in her bell like voice that sat softly on his ears and made him relax slightly.

"Greetings, Your Majesty. I am Alice Louise Gododdin, Speaker of the Witengamot. The lady to my left is Morraine Bellatrix Duran, Keeper of the Greenwich Assembly,"

"A pleasure, my lord," Morraine spoke softly with a slight bow and smile.

"The man with me is Alexei Artur Andropov, Stal'lider of the same."

"Da. Good to see you, milord," he spoke with a slight Russian accent and a deep bow.

Harry was surprised but answered with the manners that were driven into him by his relatives.

"Thank you. My name is Harry James Potter." he responded with a bow as much as he could whilst in the bed.

His guests all nodded in acknowledgement before Alice spoke once more.

"So I guess you have some questions for us?" she asked as her companions drew chairs from the small dining table for them to sit on for the length of this important discussion.

"Quite," he answered dryly, "for starters, where am I and how did I get here?"

"Currently you are in the London Embassy of the Greenwich Assembly," answered Morraine, "you were brought here when we found you in a forest clearing that we investigating due to reports of great fires and a large amount of wolves in the area."

Harry eyes glazed for a moment as he remembered the event that caused him to collapse, particularly the great wound that was inflicted on his back.

Remembering it, he suddenly leapt from his bed, surprising his guests, and moved to large free standing mirror in the corner of the room. What he saw as he examined himself shocked him.

No longer was his body stick thin and emaciated from the starvation the Dursley's saw fit to subject him to. It was now as sleekly muscled as a nine year old could be. He was also taller, taller than average. His chest was also free from the marks of Vernon and Dudley's beatings and, as he twisted his body, his back was also now clear flesh. Even his forehead, which had held an ugly lightning bolt scar, was clear. He was slightly shocked to realise that he was not wearing his glasses at that moment, meaning that his vision, by some strange means, was now corrected.

'Or even better,' Harry thought as he was able to trace the nigh invisible cracks in the glass of the mirror.

Slightly trembling, he turned once more to the other people in the room, his mask vanishing like fairy gold, leaving only a troubled, uncertain, nervous and more than a little scared boy child.

"What happened to me?" he asked/demanded as he wrapped his arms around his bare chest, as though to shield himself from the world.

They all looked at him slight sympathy but the man was the one speak, his calm rumbling tones, like you would imagine a mountain or bear would speak like, bringing some comfort to the confused boy.

"What do you remember?" he asked, peering calmly at the young child. His stare firm, unyielding but somehow comforting.

Harry marshalled thoughts for moment, thinking hard, before he answered.

"It had snowed heavily the night before, so my uncle told me that morning to clear the driveway of snow. I only had a little shovel, so it had taken a long time. It was lunch time when I finished. When I tried to come back into the house, my uncle told me he had made deal with the other houses in the street to clean their's as well. He told me to get to it and not to come back until they were all finished. I started again, but was not able to finish when it got dark. I attempted to explain to my uncle and promised to do it tomorrow but he simply grasped by the scruff and tossed me out into the cold night and told me to finish. I kept working. I was getting cold and I had not been allowed food that day, so It was getting hard to think and move. It was about three hours after sundown that I was approached that bestial man. His black face was like a wolves and tongues of flame rose around him. Around him were massive black wolves with red eyes and slavering mouths. I was frozen in fear. He then leaned leaned forward and spoke to me.

'So you are the power I sensed.' he had growled at me before chuckling. His next words filled me dread.

'Run.'

I ran.

I ran through the forest near the suburbs until I was moving faster than I had ever done in my life. And wolves and the monster chased me. I dodged fangs and flame until I reached the clearing and leapt into the branches. I was safe from the fangs but had cornered my self when their master came. When he arrived he told me to come down otherwise he would burn me to ashes. I did so and grabbed a sharp branch to hide up my sleeve whilst descending. When I reached the bottom he spoke of sensing power in me and that I would be a great warrior under his command and swung his axe to kill me. I felt power then. I could sense every being in that clearing and how they would move. I felt the instinct of corned animal to fight. I leapt at him with branch weapon extended. I received a massive wound to my back but still managed to slam my stick into his heart. I fell into the as the wolves all disappeared and he fell to the ground. He chuckled in disbelief that I, a mere boy, had killed the great Dabog. He started turning to dust saying we would meet again. After that I blacked out and woke up here."

Here Harry finished his story and looked at the expressions on his guest's faces.

The man's was hard and flushed with anger as he looked into the middle distance, obviously filled with a righteous rage against his so called family.

Alice looked immensely sad and rose to her feet and wrapped him in a hug which made him go stiff in alarm, not knowing what to do.

Morraine's expression put winter to shame in sheer coldness. Her rage was a cold one as she plotted to take _special care_ of the young King's relatives. Care involving thumbscrews and branding irons.

She was able to shake off her rage enough to answer Harry's question.

"What has happened to you, young man, is both unique and extremely rare. The being you met, fought and killed was known as a Heretic God. A force of existence that is formed by human dreams and worship. They become known as 'Heretic' because they step out of their usual metaphysical existence to form a physical existence in the material world. Often they cause natural disasters or chaos where they form. The Black Plague occurred due to the appearance of Nergal, the Mesopotamian god of pestilence and death."

Harry's eyes widened at the thought of such death and destruction brought about by such an event. He shivered slightly and stepped out of Alice's embrace.

Morraine continued.

"Generally, there is little the Magical Asso-" she was interrupted by Harry's exclamation.

"Magic!" he said stepping backward in shock, "But there is no such thing as magic."

Alexei spoke up then.  
"I assure you, young warrior, there _is_ such a thing as magic. It is just generally hidden from the eyes and minds of normal folk." his rumbling voice emphasising his comment.

Harry calmed slightly and then nodded to a slightly miffed Morraine.

"My apologies and please continue on, Ma'am," he said with a low bow to the woman which caused a slight blush and a pleased smile from the woman before she continued as though she was not interrupted.

"Generally, there is little the Magical Associations can do against them save for try to reason with them. It is rarely successful. We do not have the power to stop them because the basis of magic draws on the power of gods to shape and empower the spells. Essentially spells are a form of prayer, thus it is almost impossible for them to harm the source. Some exceptions are able to wound or capture but they are exactly that, exceptions, which require extreme power and skill or even heavy sacrifice to perform. The wielders of such are beyond few and far between, maybe only once in every ten generations is one that comes along and even then knowledge of the spell is more often than not lost in some form or another.

"Which is where people such as yourself come in.

"Occasionally, some person, by either dumb luck or skill, is able to kill a Heretic God. This enacts an ancient ritual curse set down by the Heretic Goddess Pandora of Greek myth. When a human kills one, they take on some of the powers of the Heretic God changed by the slayers personality and compatibility. These people are called Campione."

Morraine then drew a piece of paper from a silk bag tied to her waist and began reading it aloud to her gaping audience of one.

_"A Campione – a Godslayer – is a supreme ruler._

_"Since he can kill a celestial being, he can therefore call on the sacrosanct, divine powers wielded by the gods._

_"A Campione – a Godslayer – is a lord._

_"Since the power to kill a deity is in his hands, he therefore looms over all mortals on Earth._

_"A Campione – a Godslayer – is a devil._

_"Since of all mortals who live in the world, none can assume a power to match his!"_

She again looked at a stunned young King.

"These words were written down by the Italian mage, Alberto Ricardo, in the early nineteenth century and poetically describes the Campiones role and place in the world. If you were to demand that I kill Alexei at this moment, I would carry out that order with little hesitation."

She looked deeper into a horrified child's eyes.

"You are a supreme ruler, a king. What you command, will be done and none can gainsay you save another Campione or Heretic God. In return for this subservience you will slay the Heretic God's that descend upon our world."

"You are a Campione."

Harry reeled and sat on the edge of the bed as he listened to the final comment made by Morraine. His young mind awhirl with the thought of living such a life. A life of gold and honey followed by the next death by his blood stained hands. That was not a life. That was the existence of a dog on a leash. A leash he did not want. He has been worked like a dog by the Dursley's. He will not stand for such a life in beautified kennel. He will be the wolf existing on his own merits, making his own mistakes and living with the consequences.

'And yet,' he thought as he looked at those around him, seeing sympathy and comfort in their eyes, knowing they saw him as a person rather than a weapon, 'a wolf without a pack is no wolf at all.'

He sighed heavily as he slumped backwards to lay across the bed looking at the ceiling.

"What are the changes involved in being a Campione?" he asked quietly, not looking at them.

Alexei cleared his throat and his rumbling voice spoke.

"When one first becomes Campione, all previous injuries or illnesses are removed from the body, essentially bringing it to peak condition. In your case, it has healed your body of any scars and the damage that the starvation you had been through has done and brought your body to peak health.

"The secondary changes are numerous. The most famed being the magical resistance. Mortal magic will simply just not work on you. Even a Heretic God's powers against you will be reduced, even if only slightly. Along with a massively enhanced magical capacity to the point of making even the strongest mortal mage look like ants in comparison to your lion.

"Other changes include, a large increase of good luck in games of chance to point of maybe even influencing chance itself, magical sensing, nigh unbreakable bones, enhanced healing, complete comprehension of all written languages along with the ability to speak and understand all human tongues, strengthened vitality to the point of living for hundreds to even possibly thousands of years whilst retaining all the power of your youth and enhanced danger instincts to where you can understand something is dangerous or wrong, even if you intellectually don't know why, which enhances your combat abilities.

"The greatest change, however, comes in the power you have received the Heretic God as a 'spoil of war' if you will. They can obscure or blatant, many or singular but all come back to the base of personality and the root power of the Heretic God. These powers are called Authorities and, for every Heretic God you slay, you will acquire more."

"You say that as if more of them will come and that I will fight them." Harry said as he once again rose to his feet, his face set in a stubborn frown.

Alice only smiled sadly as she gazed into his set green eyes.

"More will come," she said, her voice filled with wisdom and sadness, "and they will seek out those who could challenge them, like yourself, or wreak havoc until even the most cold hearted of beings could not refuse to aid those who suffered from the disaster. In the end, you will have to face and fight them."

Harry and Alice stared each other down before the boy broke the stare in the acknowledgement of her point.

"What is it that you want?" he said coldly, bitter at the destiny that awaited him, "young I may be, but even a fool can see that there are ulterior motives behind your acts of kindness."

Alice answered, composed as ever.

"Generally Mage Associations attempt to acquire the patronage of a Campione. Secure them as an ally to help them deal with any incursions of a Divine nature as they are the only ones who can truly combat them. The Witengamot, based here in London and the British Islands, already has ties with the Campione Black Prince Alec. He is a rude, selfish, ill-mannered and thieving ruffian but he is still a Campione." she sighed in frustration and tiredness, "no matter how much I wish he wasn't." she muttered under her breath but not quietly enough not to reach her companion's and Harry's ears.

They all smiled slightly as the tension between them lessened to a more comfortable feeling.

Morraine took over speaking.

"Having two Campione in the same territory is, historically, asking for trouble. Because of the generally strong personalities of the Campiones involved, it generally leads to a clash which becomes a fight which, when considering the amount of power that each of them have, in turn becomes a small war that can and has wiped entire towns off the map."

Harry paled before he quickly spoke, "Let's not have that," before he frowned slightly, "I take it that this Greenwich Assembly wishes for me to be their Campione? And they are not based in England?"

Morraine's eyes widened in pleasure before she responded.

"You are a sharp lad," she said in warm approval, causing Harry to duck his head and blush, "Yes we do and we are based in Zurich, Switzerland and we govern most of mainland Europe, Russia and the Middle East in regards to magic. Though we do have embassies in other areas such as London, Athens, New Delhi and other such areas."

Harry gaped at her for moment before he groaned and slumped onto the bed again.

"That is one hell of a area," he muttered.

The guests all chuckled before Morraine went on.

"Because are at such a young age, making you the youngest Campione in recorded history by the way, we do not expect you to be able to fulfill your duties to fight Heretic Gods and other such beings for a while yet but we can aid you in this. We are willing to train you in whatever you want. Combat, Magic, History even Cooking if that is what you desire. However it is up to you to accept the offer. We can and will not force you to accept our offer. We can only lay out the pros and cons of the situation and let you decide."

"Your future is in your hands, young King. Now you must choose to walk it."

All was quiet in the room as Harry contemplated the offer. If he stayed in England he would sooner rather than later come into conflict and battle with the Pompous Prince (his private name for Alec after hearing Alice's description) and most probably lose abominably and his life would be made hell in some form or another until he left. If he went with Morraine and Alexei he would leave England to a different country, meet new people, learn new things and, best of all, never return to the Dursley's. Even if he has to fight divine and demonic beings and monsters every now and then...

It was a no-brainer.

Harry drew himself up to his full height and unconsciously let out an aura of power as he spoke.

"I, Harry James Potter, Campione, do hereby accept the alliance and allegiance of the Greenwich Assembly in return for one request."

Alexei and Morraine both stiffened before the large Russian spoke.

"Your request?" he asked formally.

Harry stared at them with hard eyes before relaxed and spoke softly, almost meekly and pleading.

"Please," his voice almost begging and mind overwhelmed by all that had been revealed to him, "just treat me as Harry not a Campione."

His small voice made Morraine's breath hitch before abandoning all decorum to rise from her seat and take the young man in her arms with a warm and sincere embrace.

"Have no fear, young man," she whispered into his hair, "you will always be Harry before Campione to us."

A firm hand and gentle touch caused Harry to lift his head from Morraine's bosom to look into the kind and warm eyes of Alice and Alexei.

It was all too much for the emotionally starved child.

For the first time since he was toddler, for the first time since he had cognitive thought at the Dursley's,

He wept.

He wept and sobbed.

He wept and sobbed in happiness that he now had love about him.  
He was loved.

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Well folks, how did you like the chapter? As a warning, the next chapter won't have much action but those who dislike the Headmaster Manipulator will enjoy the chapter as he gets knocked down a few (dozen) pegs. And also a glimpse of the difference between wizards and mages and the early parts of harry's training.

Also a quick question for you all. Should I make Harry attend Hogwarts at eleven or should I choose a later date? I have ideas for both paths but I will admit to leaning toward the later date option as it will be easier for me.

Please review and let me know.

All flamers with be summarily ignored and cursed to the Netherworld.


	3. Chapter 2

The Wild Campione

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Campione

Hey folks,  
To address a few issues, by general desire, Harry will make an appearance at Hogwarts at a later date. As for the many who commented on Harry's characterisation and intelligence, I have always been of the opinion that Harry was smarter than showed by Rowling and believe that the Dursley's kept him down. As for his maturity wavering back and forth with panicked childishness, well lets just say that Harry's upbringing (if you can call it that) has left some issues behind that have been exacerbated by the Campione ritual. I also believe that Harry, the real Harry, could make that Dog/Leash/Kennel analogy. That said I will try to keep a more consistent view of Harry in future. To vanbor the fire mage, go to google and type in 'people of the wolf stormfront dabog' and you will find my source.

Now let the good times (for us not Dumbledore) roll.

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Chapter 2

Headmaster's Office  
Hogwarts

Albus Dumbledore was in a fury.

Over the past two days, nothing had gone right for him.

It had started with some of the objects is his office spontaneously combusting and exploding, thus waking him from a sound sleep. By the time his old bones had managed to stagger into his office and put out the fire the damage had been supreme. Making him have to redo the paperwork he had already finished and wasn't done until dawn the next day.

He still had nightmares of drowning in towers of paper and parchment.

Then, seeing as the sun was already up, he began an investigation into the cause of explosions. His hopes that it was the Weasley twins, who had despite being in their first year made a large impression of being royal prankster pains in the arse, had fallen flat as he found that it was the various magical objects that he had tied to Harry Potter that had been the source.

That had jolted him wide awake more than if someone had shot caffeine into his veins and shoved a cattle prod up his arse.

He had carefully inspected the objects once more. The ones that had exploded had all been designed to cause changes to the boy. Physical suppressants, emotional suppressants, magical core bindings and mental chains designed to keep him from thinking hard on certain topics. A sure fire way to craft a weapon aimed at his enemies. These had all exploded. This both confused and scared him. The only way for them to explode would have been if the victi- target's power had increased to the point that it overloaded the spells. There was no known way for such a thing to happen, to his great knowledge.

Even more alarming were the passive wards and spells he had laid on the Dursley residence. The tracking spell artifact had died. The spinning ruby that monitored the state of the blood wards had stopped, indicating the wards were no more. The only way for those to stop was if Harry Potter was dead.

He immediately made plans to travel to Privet Drive. As Fawkes, his rune-bound familiar, had just had a burning day he made a portkey. The world had started spinning and he landed just outside the border of the now non-existent wards and began casting scanning spells.

The results had him nigh shitting his purple trousers.

An immensely powerful magical being had been here and had met his little weapon. By just appearing it had shattered the various wards he had placed on Privet Drive, contrary to his initial thoughts on the brat being dead. That boggled his mind. Sure, powerful magical beings were able to negate spells aimed at them if the spells were at a certain level compared to their own magical reserves but the amount of power required to outright destroy a single anchored ward, let alone numerous ones, by brute force was beyond any being. Period.

Urgency had filled his steps as he traced the path of the brat and the being via spell. It led through a forest until it reached a clearing with charred grass in spots leading to a lone oak like footsteps. There was an immense pool of power near the oak indicating a powerful magical event. Dumbledore hastily threw around more power to trace where the power and the brat had gone.

Only to draw a blank.

For some Merlin-forsaken reason there were no traces of either the brat or the being ever leaving this clearing.

He had then let loose with some very colourful language that could put a rainbow to shame. He had lost track of his little puppet and his plans for the future all hinged upon him.

His mind raced as he tried to figure out a solution to his problem. Thankfully, his scans were able to provide information that they boy was still alive in some fashion, though how the brat was able live after being chased and assumedly attacked by such a powerful being was something that made him uneasy. He couldn't persuade the idiot in charge of the Ministry to find the brat otherwise they would find out about his small ... indiscretions ... through standard checks, not to mention the panic it would cause and the political capital the Malfoy clique would gain at his supposed failing in looking after the brat after he had stonewalled all attempts by the Ministry and others to influence him under the guise of 'ensuring the safety of national hero'.

He had snorted in derision at the thought of a Malfoy being altruistic.

No. This had to be kept under wraps and done by himself alone.

He had then quickly portkeyed back to his humble office, by which time it was nearly lunch time, only to be met by a rather frantic Deputy Headmistress.

As it was Christmas Break, the teachers usually used that time to relax and catch up on miscellaneous paperwork and various minor duties. In Minerva's case, she usually checked up on the Book of Names that was used to send out the acceptance letters for the incoming first years, especially in the case of Muggleborns. As a force of habit, she had checked the brat's name (she had always had a soft spot for the brat and his parents) only to find that it was crossed out in red ink. The only reason the book would do this is if the brat had passed on.

She had been on tear looking for him since.

He was finally able to placate her by informing of the business he had carried out that morning and that he inform her as soon as he had more information but requested that she keep quiet about her knowledge of the events. Her unimpressed glare met his falsely serene blue eyes before she had acquiesced to his demands and returned to her duties.

Which probably involved a glass of ice and a bottle of scotch.

He had then quickly reached into his desk for the boy's vault key that he had in his possession. With it he should be able to track the boy through his soul rather his body thus maybe getting around whatever had stopped him tracking him before.

Only to find it missing.

Sulphurous cursing filled his office as he discovered that he had lost his access to a great deal of gold and, more importantly, priceless artifacts and knowledge that was contained in the Potter vaults. While he was not a Potter by blood, which meant he could not remove items from the vault, he was able, in the role of caretaker of the estate, able to access and use the items in the vault, only so long as he had the key.

With it now gone, he could no longer access the funds and treasures of the Potters.

His furious investigation into the missing key showed that it had been transported rather than destroyed as it would have if the brat was dead. Meaning that, somehow, the brat had been considered an adult by goblin law and thus his role of caretaker was null and void and with the Goblin sovereignty laws within Gringotts, he couldn't use the Ministry to ensure that he was made caretaker once more.

Something truly had it out for him this day.

By this time evening had fallen and he still had that day's mountain of paperwork to do. Angrily resigning himself to the fact there was little he could do at this late hour, he decided to do the paperwork in hope of being able to get to bed before midnight.

That was the one thing that had gone right.

This morning, not even two hours ago, he had received a fire call from Croaker of the Department of Mysteries. The news he gave was enough to almost give his old body a heart attack from pure shock, fear and rage.

The prophecy had been rendered void.

By whatever means, the prophecy that he had guided his actions by was now had no more meaning a puff of air.

It had taken him a while to regain his composure before he gave Croaker orders in his role as Supreme Mugwump of the Wizengamot to seal the knowledge of the prophecy's invalidity.

Even Croaker, old battler that he was, wasn't stupid enough to cross Albus at this point in time.

The last few hours saw Albus staring at the ceiling in fury and anger. The ship of wizarding culture, that he had steered towards the 'Light' for over half a century now, had, in the span of less than forty-eight hours, lost its sword in Harry Potter and its rudder in the prophecy.

All in all, it wasn't a good time to be Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.

Especially when Minerva came into the office bearing two large stacks of paperwork.

It almost made him cry.

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Harry was having a good time.

Not long after the discussion with the people who helped him and his decision to go with Alexei and Morraine, he had been quickly taken on a private plane to Zurich. Before he had left, however, he promised to stay in touch with Alice which she had gladly accepted.

The flight had been quick, less than two hours, and they had avoided all the trouble with customs and passports with a little magical help.

He was then bundled into a car to take to Magie Festung, the headquarters of the Greenwich Assembly, home of the Stals, the military branch of said Assembly which Alexei was in charge of, and Alexandria, the library containing the collective knowledge of the Assembly assembled over the centuries of its existence, which Morraine was in charge of.

While startling to Harry at first that such high ranked people had come to talk to him, in retrospect he thought that it was normal move to have such people greet a Campione. They probably didn't want to offend him by sending a low class gofer.

When the car approached the building he was in slight awe, much to the two adults pleasure. It was a grand stone structure with high front wall and a slowly opening, yet equally large, iron gate. Inside the walls was something that looked like a medieval fairytale come to life. It was a large archetypical castle. Great spiralling towers topped with pennants, great stone walls and great arching entrances. It was like a dream to the young King.

The car pulled up in front of the short flight of stone stairs leading to the great carved oaken doors.

As they got out, Alexei smiled at the boy's wandering and curious eyes.

"This is grand. Is it not?" he asked with a smile.

The only response to the large Russian's question was a dumb nod causing him to chuckle.

"Enough looking around for now, young Harry," said Morraine as she ushered both of the males towards the doors, " it is cold at the moment and I have no desire to see if a Campione can catch a cold."

Harry quickly nodded as Alexei flexed his immense muscles to push open the large doors with a dull groan.

It opened up into a large entrance hall filled with suits of armour and weapons along with various pictures of past leaders and framed accolades.

"This way, your Majesty," said Morraine as she gestured to a chamber off to the side, "the rest of the council would like to meet you."

Nodding Harry and Alexei hurriedly followed the woman until they reached black and silver door and knocked firmly.

"Enter," a lone voice called upon which they did so.

Harry was treated to the sight of only three more people instead of the large gathering he was expecting around a decently sized mahogany table.

"Welcome, young King, to Magie Festung," said a firm voice from a silver haired, blue eyed man of middle age who had risen and bowed, "I am Julian Morrow in charge of Intelligence and Diplomacy division."

A buxom young woman with blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin was the next to speak.

"I am Rosalind Bern," she said calmly as she too rose and bowed, "currently in charge of the Healing division."

A rotund old man with thin fly away grey hair and a full beard and moustache that framed his beady yet cheerful brown eyes was the last.

"I am Jacob Osterland," he said a small smile and shallow bow, "Head of Research and Development."

Harry bowed slightly back in recognition and pulled out a seat at the table across from them.

"And I am Harry James Potter, Campione." he answered as he shifted his features to the blank mask he had kept around the Dursley's, "I will make things easier for you and say things out loud rather than tip toeing around the situation," he gave the three before him a steely look, "you need a Campione to back your organization, I need training and support in order to survive now that I will have Heretic Gods after my head due to sheer dumb luck on my part. I can choose to leave here at anytime and live and die on my own merits. You risk a fair bit on your part having my inexperienced backing. We can help each other.

"So lets sort out the details."

There was silence for a moment before Rosalind giggled slightly causing the room to turn to her.

"A Campione so young and yet so mature and is not full of him or her self," she giggled again before composing herself, "My apologies, young King, but I have met Lords Salvatore, Voban and Gascogne and found them quite arrogant and hard to stand. You are the first that seems to have their head screwed on right."

Harry smiled slightly.

"Having heard stories of my fellow Campione from Morraine, I am inclined to agree. It is truly sad when a child is more reasonable than supposed adults."

That got a round of laughter from all of them.

Julian got back on track.

"We can sort out the details tomorrow. This was only intended to be a meet and greet but we can start a schedule for your schooling in various arts tomorrow in you wish?"

Harry nodded his head firmly in agreement.

"Good. Then we wish you well, my lord. We all, unfortunately, have appointments to attend to, nothing that can't be cancelled of co-," Julian was interrupted.

"No need for me to take up your time. If you could just have someone show me to some chambers? I am feeling slightly fatigued from the flight." Harry quickly said.

"Of course," answered Jacob, "Morraine will show you the way to the Grand Chambers."

With that the three along with Alexei left, leaving Harry to follow after Morraine.

It was half an hour later that Harry was curled up in a comfortable bed after an interesting day.

It was his greatest hope to always come back to this simple comfort.

Little did he know that he would find this even more comfortable after the lessons started the next day.

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Okay. I know this is not my best work but I wish to get to some action in the next chapter. This will be the last we will be hearing from Dumbledore for a while and there will be a time skip of a little over a year which will contain flashbacks of various revelations. Like Goblins and Wizard/Mage differences. Also I would like your opinions on the Heretic Gods that Harry will face. In the past year he will have faced one in flashback and in the chapter after next he will face another. Those are already planned out. What I want is two more with the following qualifications.

God One:  
Female  
Movement or Travel  
Obscure Myth ie not Norse, Celt, Greek or any well known mythology. Be creative.

God Two:  
Male  
Knowledge or Magic based

Hope you can help.


	4. Chapter 3

The Wild Campione

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Campione

Hey folks,  
First I must apologize for my requests. I have decided to scrap the use and idea of the HGs that I asked you to suggest, I just couldn't fit them into the story anymore. To make up for that, I will reveal that not in this chapter but the next chapter, Harry will face a Hero God and a powerful Divine Beast at the same time which will earn him in total 3 Authorities. 1 from the Beast and 2 from the Hero. The first person to guess either of the beings correctly will have the privilege of designing a God and Authority which Harry will obtain in the future. Those who do so, please remember that I am building Harry as a Ranger-like build. That said you can throw an oddball Authority that have the right to veto. I will also reveal that the grand boss of this story is tied to HP Cannon.

As a clue for the god and monster. I will say they are both of the same mythology, the god is a hero god and they have not crossed paths in myth and that they are not Russian.

Now on with the show

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Chapter 3

One Year Later  
Magie Festung

Harry was sitting quietly on the balcony of his chambers. The still cold air and very light snow doing little to disturb him as he enjoyed a cup of Earl Grey.

Setting down the mug on the small table beside him, he reached once more for the thin book of reports regarding possible upcoming or suspected Heretic God emergences. As he read the report from Russia regarding a sudden spike in the leylines of a large mountainous forest and subsequent aggressive behaviour of the wildlife, he remembered the last time he had fought a Heretic God.

Completely by accident mind you.

_Flashback  
Roughly 6 Months Ago_

_Harry let the sea breeze whip his hair about as he stood at the prow of the boat as it blazed its way to the Turkish beach._

_He had had a rough six months. He had become a Campione, learned magic existed and was taught magic and combat by the toughest person short of Heretic God with his torturous (to him) training._

_He had gained a small phobia for rubber balls because of that._

_He had not rested for the last six months. Endless training day or night. Alexei had taken his durability and stretched it to the breaking point. Hand to hand, weaponry, tactics and more were taught to him._

_For all that he was a father figure to him, when it came time to train he was a completely different person. Outside he was slightly stern yet friendly and mischevious. Inside, he made most drill instructors look like babes in arms._

_At least he got the respect of the other Stals outside of just being a Campione by going through the drills with them._

Even Morraine got on the band wagon by taking over his normal schooling like History (particularly ancient and mythical), Math, Geography, Science and more besides.

_It made his head want to explode._

_As a Campione, he could have refused to go through with this demanding schedule but it wasn't in him to just quit because something was too hard. If nothing else, the result were more than satisfactory._

_Either way, this was his first real bit of down time, apart from the mandatory single rest day each week for the Stals, so he was going to make the most of this week and a half._

_Hearing his name called, he twisted his head to look at his companion for the trip._

_Anya Atalanta Duran. Daughter of Morraine and a very dangerous girl to anyone of the male gender._

_Her long black hair was in a loose braid like her mothers but her slightly paler skin and amethyst eyes showed her father's (whoever he may be) legacy to her. Her early teenage body was also filling out nicely according to some of the boys in the Assembly._

_He had had lessons from her mother that she had attended as well. Despite the large gulf of Campione and age between them, they had ended up being good friends once he stopped being shy and she managed to throw off the awe of Campione._

_When it came time for the trip, he was convinced that an escort was necessary. He chose Anya due to the familiarity with her and her competency in magic, in particular she used Magical Archery which simply involved imbuing special arrows with an elemental component or a curse spell seed designed to activate on contact. She had chosen this path after hearing the legend behind her middle name and had even asked her mother to commission the special bow required for the art in the colour silver._

_Needless to say she was a very good shot._

_"Yes, Anya?" he answered as he watched her approach shakily as the high speed boat cut across the water. The motion of the boat kept her from walking normally._

_Her sea-sickness didn't help either._

_Swaying slightly, she gave a small bow (much to his well hidden chagrin) and gave her report._

_"The captain says that we should get to the Butterfly Valley in less than an hour."_

_"Good," he answered as he turned back towards the prow, "We should be there about an hour before sundown then. That will give us enough time to set up the tent and relax."  
His Campione eyes picked up the hint of the large cliffs as he continued,_

_"Can you please ensure that all the baggage is ready for departure and that the captain knows when to pick us up?"_

_Feeling her acknowledge his statement and begin to shakily move away, he kept his gaze pinned on the destination that he could just make out._

_Butterfly Valley, Turkey. One of the top ten beaches in the country but one of the most difficult to get to by land due to the truly massive sloping cliffs on either side. A bit rustic and out of the way but that was the attraction. No big city, just a small hamlet at the top of the cliffs, the ability to camp down in the beautiful valley and a waterfall surrounded in a cloud on butterflies._

_'Blue lagoon, eat you heart out,' he thought amusedly._

_Twenty minutes later saw Anya and himself heaving the luggage out of the chartered boat and thanking the captain whilst reminding him to pick them up in a week before waving him off as the boat roared off._

_They both quickly moved towards the campsite and began setting it up with ease of long practice._

_Just as well they practiced setting up camp at the Festung otherwise they would have been very annoyed at this moment._

_By the time the sun was setting they had finished and were sitting on the beach watching it fall below the horizon. Harry sat against a tree looking at it while Anya merely sat on the ground with her hands propping her up._

_"This is so beautiful," she whispered in adoration at the sight before her. Having grown up in a bustling city, the view to her was both alien and desirable._

_She really wanted to see this sort thing again._

_Harry smiled slightly as he nodded in agreement. Having lived in Surrey county in England, he had never been to the beach or seen such sights either and wanted to see more._

_As the sun finally was just a slight flicker on the horizon, he quietly began planning to come back here for his next holiday._

_It was at this moment that everything went to hell in a handbasket._

_His instincts suddenly screamed at him to move. Listening, he leapt from his seated position towards Anya, taking her larger and surprised form in his arms before leaping away again. His instincts were proved correct as a burst of light struck his previous position and obliterated the tree he had rested against and everything else in a ten foot radius._

_A voice cried out in the darkness drawing his attention as well as Anya's._

_"It seems my attack missed you, demon" the voice cried as the smoke drifted away gradually revealing the form of the attacker, "but I will not do so again whilst the girl is in your vile clutches."_

_The form of the attacker was a youthful young teenaged winged figure. His face was heavily tanned and his eyes glowed bright gold as he hovered before them. His Persian balloon pants with red sash and a loose white silk tunic. In his left hand was clutched a large tightly wound scroll._

_It was his presence that gave him away though. Power flowed from the being like a river, more than any normal being by an immense margin._

_He was a Heretic God._

_Drawing himself up, as the deity seemed content to wait for the moment, he then addressed his attacker while he moved the taller girl behind his smaller body in an effort to protect her._

_"To whom do I have the honour of addressing?" he asked, trying to both gather information and keep things at least slightly civil._

_One the most basic lessons that was pounded into him by both Alexei and Morraine was that 'knowledge is the key to victory'._

_Right now, he needed all the knowledge he could get._

_The deity seemed to sneer slightly at him in disgust. As if he was little more than a bug beneath his foot._

_"I am the one who delivers justice and ushers in the righteous dead. I bring words of God to men and men to God. My sharp ears hear the crawling and scuttling of demons and nightly do I descend to destroy them. I am Sraosha." the now identified Sraosha's scroll began to unroll and glow, "And I command thee to BEGONE!"_

_At this last word a massive ball of power rocketed toward them, making them hastily leap away in different directions. Anya toward the land and Harry toward the sea. The position they were in was utterly destroyed and the shockwave of power sent Harry and Anya flying. Harry managed to roll with the wave and landed on his feet before dodging to the side, parallel to the ocean, thus avoiding a mace strike from his attacker. Seeing the over reach by the deity, he swiftly ignited his magic for his specialty._

_Ignition._

_A simple name for simple and yet devastating spell. All mages were able to reinforce their body without calling upon spiritual entities to one degree or another whether it was to endure a strike, make a stronger one or move faster or even enhance their senses. Harry was able to take this to another level with his Campione body which allowed him, a less than ten year old boy, able to strike hard and fast enough to injure Divine beings._

_Sraosha soon found that out the hard way as a Campione empowered fist was slammed into his face with immense strength and speed, sending him into the ocean and giving Harry time to use his Authority._

_**"The Black Father calls,  
Our brothers with fangs howl,  
From the darkness stalks the fangs,  
Which feed upon the light."**_

_With these words said, an eerie howl was heard before immense black wolves were flickering into existence beside him._

_When Sraosha finally managed recover from the shock of being struck and hurt from the demon child and exploded out of the water, he was greeted with the great fangs of a wolf going for his face causing him suddenly glow and blur away, just missing being bitten, only to avoid even more fangs as a great tide of wolves seemed to come at him from all sides. To his immense shock, the light he shot towards the wolves as he dodged, that should have easily destroyed such low level Beasts with ease, seemed to only make them stronger and faster. He then resorted to blurring away again into the air where they could not reach only to find able to leap high enough causing him transform his [Scroll of Prayers] into a mace to defend himself. All the while his anger and disgust at the demon grew._

_Harry, in the mean time, used another of his Authorites after he quickly looked to see if Anya was safe. Thankfully she was and was also prepared to fight if the drawn bow and arrows were any indication._

_He then quickly chanted as he lay his hands on a large boulder as the wolves kept harrying the Heretic God as Anya fired her arrows at the deity merely annoying him but enough to keep him occupied as the wolves also defended her from his momentary light bullets at his order._

**_"For I am the great giver  
My wealth is abundant,  
And my tables are full,  
Take what you will,  
Accept my gifts,  
For my treasury and larder is the Earth itself."_**

_The boulder glowed a bright white as he focused._

_'Diamond' he thought as the boulder shaped, 'A sharp blade of diamond'_

_The glow died leaving a large diamond short sword atop the now shorter boulder._

_Grasping it he quickly used Ignition to move towards the fight. His body hurtling forward in a burst of speed and strength. Just in time to strike his magic filled blade against a ball of light aimed at Anya and parry it away._

_Sraosha glared at this demon whilst he was now out of reach of the leaping wolves. His anger filled him until he was glowing brightly and charged at blinding speed towards the demon, his mace that was once a scroll held ready to strike._

_Harry calmly watched him come. He stood in front of Anya, who had put up her bow, and watched the glowing with rage Sraosha charge as his wolves chased behind._

_A moment passed as Sraosha suddenly glowed again and was in front of Harry with his mace swinging._

_Forewarned by his instinct, he Ignition stepped backward and parried the blow and the next and the next as Sraosha rained blow after blow on the small Campione. Disregarding the fangs of the wolves as they tore at him. His rage so great at the (to him) demon's existence that he had lost reason._

_Eventually, to Harry's body's great relief, one of his Wolves managed to rip the mace and arm from the God. Soon after the God's throat was ripped out causing his glow to dim, fade and die. Harry caught his last expression before he was dust a moment later._

_Harry watched this as he let the wolves disappear back to the shadows they came from._

_This didn't make sense._

_As Anya came to stand alongside, he kept looking at the spot that was Sraosha's grave. By the feel of him he was a Steel deity and yet he had fallen so quickly to him and his own rage._

_Steel was renowned for their battle prowess and yet there was little of that exhibited here. Only pure rage and anger at his own existence._

_He still felt that slight metaphysical shifting inside himself that indicated an Authority was gained so he was definitely a Heretic God._

_He turned away from the spot with his sword in hand and Anya following, his thoughts troubled as they made their way back to camp._

_As they stayed on that beach and relaxed for that time, his thoughts periodically returned to the encounter and the expression he made before he he was killed._

_After all, what could make a God feel grateful for being killed?._

_End Flashback_

Harry frowned as he remembered the aftermath when he returned to Magie Festung.

Morraine was both relieved and furious at them. Relieved that they were alive to come home and furious that they did not run from the God and instead fought it. She released her anger however when she learned that the God had targeted them thus not allowing Harry to withdraw from battle. She also showed hints of pride for him and her daughter, which had left him blushing and Anya preening at the subtle praise from his mother figure.

Alexei understood that he had not been able to withdraw immediately and gave him a proud clap on the shoulders. The Stals and other branches of the Assembly also gave him more respect because he had 'made his bones' against a Heretic God and cemented himself as a Campione.

This, however, did not stop Alexei and Morraine from taking their tutoring to the max and beyond to ensure he was more prepared.

The other leaders of the Assembly also dropped in from time to time to tutor him on their area of expertise and knowledge. For the most part it was an explanation of what they did and how they ran it.

They were lucky Harry did not fall asleep on them.

"Thinking deep thoughts?" a soft voice asked causing Harry to turn, unsurprised, towards the ectoplasmic projection of Princess Alice.

"No more than usual," he said as he finished the reports, "But I may have to go to Russia in a few days if the reports are confirmed," Harry grimaced for a moment before he went on, "as it is I would have been leaving tomorrow if it wasn't for the meeting with the local Goblin bank."

Alice's eyebrows rose in surprise and curiosity at the comment and gave him a look to keep him talking.

Harry chuckled slightly at his friend's pouting face and gave in to her persuasive actions.

"It turns out that my parents, my father's family in particular, had a rather large and old account with their British branch."

Alice wrinkled her nose in distaste at the implications before frowning and looking hard at the young King as he played mother and prepared a cup of tea for her.

"Your a Warlock?" she asked intently and then with puzzlement at his slight nod, "but if that is true, how were you able to see and interact with Dabog?"

Harry shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of ignorance.

Alice's question did have merit however. At one point, when Gods had walked the earth freely, several deities had given a punishment to their priests and witches who had broken their oaths to them.

The punishment was that if they were willing to turn their backs to the Gods, then the Gods would turn their backs to them.

The immediate result was they were rendered incapable of Magic.

Thus were born the Warlocks. The Oathbreakers

They still had the power in them, they just could not gain the attention of a Gods aid to release it or even see the true form of the Divine. This curse persisted down the lines of the punished, which were many as other Gods adopted this punishment as their own, until some lucky bastard managed to get a hold of a fresh reagent and was able to trigger Magic once more.

This was because, despite the curse, they still had magic in them, they just needed a bonded physical channel in the form a part of a being of sufficient power to give them an aid.

In this case it was magical beings, which were earthly manifestations of the Divine Beasts that had once roamed the earth. There were more them but they were also much weaker than a true Magical Beast because they were bound by earthly laws.

Once that was discovered the population of Warlocks became a civilization which spread out and merged with the normal populace thus creating a 'Wizarding World'.

Their power compared to a Mages was versatile due to not having to draw on the Gods but it was frail and weak compared to the raw power of the Mages.

Bluntly, God trumps Warlock. Everytime.

The curse still persisted in making them ignorant to the Gods, however, so they were unable to perceive those who can use the powers of the Gods ie Magi and Campione and others. Thus while Magi could keep tabs on Warlocks they same can not be said for the WArlocks in regards to Magi.

That Harry was of such a line was both unique and puzzling.

The fact they he could see and interact with the Heretic God and become Campione may be an indication of the curse weakening or a unique feature of Harry himself.

Only time would tell.

As they both quietly sipped their tea and pondered about the what future held, the snow kept drifting down quietly.

Neither of them knew that the visit to the bank was a small pebble that would create a large metaphorical avanlanche years from now.

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Okay folks. I know that the action scene was a bit sad but they are not my strongest suit. Also, the reason Harry was able to defeat a being so seemingly easy was that Sraosha was being influenced and the Wolves were pretty much his anti-thesis. Without the wolves Harry may have been pushing up daises if he wasn't careful. For those who are curious here is the Authority he gained.

[Light Messenger]  
Sraosha was the 'Sound from the Sky' and his name means 'to Hearken' and was mentioned as the swiftest. This Authority allow Harry to access Godspeed. His movements are like a flash of light similar to Alec's and he is shrouded in light. There are conditions however. It can be freely activated after sundown but elsewhen it can only be activated whilst in shadow or darkness. Also Harry must keep moving in some fashion or the Authority will deactivate and will have to be reactivated. It can only be reactvated twice, meaning it can only be used three times before it has to recharge over a 24 hour period. The Authority also allows for teleportation across the physical realm and even into other dimensions like the Netherworld etc. However this can only be used three times before it is sealed and needs recharging for the span of 24 hours. Also as Sraosha was a being who carried all heard prayers to Ahura Mazda, any who believe in him are able to call his attention and allow him to teleport to their side. They must give a brief prayer though.

Well how did you like it?


	5. Chapter 4

The Wild Campione

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Campione

Hey folks,  
First off thank you all for your reviews. To aanswer some questions, yes you can kill a Divine Beast and obtain an Authority but the Divine Beast must be off unique legend ie killing a dragon will do little but killing a named Dragon like Nidhogg or Yamata no Orochi will let you obtain one. There also Hero-Gods like Odysseus and Achilles. The main antagonist is only referenced in the HP and was not an actual character. Considering that the antagonist is still a god... I think most can have a guess on who it is. For those not so savvy here is a clue, Beedle. AS for the mechanics of the curse, I will tell you now that aspects of it are beginning to weaken and that it plays to their perceptions like if a Magi were to perform magic before them then they would dismiss it as a trick but can still interact with them. In the case of Divine Beings like Beasts, Ancestors and Gods they cannot be seen due to the Divine Space or field of magic they put out that a Wizard's magic will reject thus making them unable to perceive them but can find and trace the aftermath like Dumbledore did, though it seems that that portion of the curse is weakening. Though even if it does a Wizard will still be unable to cast Magi spells due to the millennia of magical evolution and adaption. To Joe Lawyer, I will try to make more explanations and as for Harry's magic, well that will be a surprise. However due to his Wizarding / Warlock heritage and Campione status, expect Harry's magic to be very different from HP canon and Campione verse due to the advantages inherent in both. Also yes, that diamond sword will be Harry's go to weapon due to gemstones able to hold a great deal of magic and one that size could easily hold enough to wound, injure or kill a god provided enough magic is channeled through it.

Now that your questions are answered, on with the show!

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Chapter 4

Gringotts, Zurich Branch

Hardgrasp was having good day.

His investments were improving greatly, his enemies were in trouble with the Director of the bank, his son was growing stronger and his daughter more beautiful. His mate was even in a playful mood that morning.

Which is why he was nervous as hell as he kept to his post in front of the bank's great doors.

Whenever he had a good run of luck, bad luck came soon after. He was guardedly watching all around him, waiting for the other steel boot to drop.

It was after the short and anxious lunch break that it came.

His senses went haywire, feeling an immense amount of _power_ in the air, causing his eyes to shift wildly around whilst keeping his post. The other goblins on shift also started looking around, their black eyes flickering around. One of the more green guards was shifting his head around which, at any other time, would have made Hardgrasp sneer in disgust at such a lack of discipline and reported him to his Captain.

The wizards around them continued filing through the doors completely deaf, dumb and blind to the approaching powerful being.

Hardgrasp was the first to see the source of the disturbance and had to blink hard in disbelief.

Wearing a sharp black suit and trousers with a dark green shirt and a black tie, was a child. Unless the goblin guard was mistaken the child could not have been more than ten or eleven at most. Raven black hair with emerald green eyes and sharp features on an obviously extremely fit body.

Despite his nervousness as the supremely powerful child approached, he had to give his respect to the child and laugh slightly inwardly. This was no Wizarding child. The boy had the walk and bearing of a warrior and a king. He very much looked the part despite his obviously young age.

The boy had reached him by then and was about to pass before he seemed to halt for a moment and look directly at him. His almost glowing emerald eyes pierced him as the boy spoke to him.

"Are you the current Guard Leader?" the boy's smooth voice said, which almost caused to startle.

The boy had spoken unaccented Goblin tongue.

An almost impossible task for any being not Goblin due to the unique voice box structure in their bodies. Many had tried over the years and had failed miserably.

A bout of trepidation filled him, without knowing why, as he sensed that this person was important.

"I am," he responded calmly, his voice steady and held none of the trepidation he felt being before this child of immense power.

The child reached into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out a neatly rolled scroll and held it out to him.

"I was directed to give this to you and to follow your instructions," the boy stated.

While wondering who would have the balls to direct someone of his power, regardless of age, he took the scroll to inspect it. Upon seeing the seal his whole body stilled in shock.

It was the Director's seal.

Quickly opening it, he glanced over what was written. In no uncertain terms it told him to escort the holder personally to his office immediately and to treat the holder as if he were the Director himself on pain of Clan Death if he did not comply.

Paling at the thought of disobeying the order and having his family and Clan killed, he quickly turned to the boy.

"If you would follow me, sir," he said both respectfully and nervously, "Director Ragnuk is awaiting your arrival."

The boy happily nodded, not noticing the subtle shock that ran through the rest of the Guard at the thought of a human boy, even one as powerful as he, had an appointment with the Director and even more disturbing that he would see the Director immediately rather than be made to wait like most negotiators and customers were so as to impress upon them that the Goblin nation held the power.

"Brokeclaw," Hardgrasp called as he looked at his squad, in particular a hardened warrior-like goblin that had not taken his eyes off the boy since he had started speaking to hardgrasp, wary and willing to protect his commander, "your in charge until I return."

Upon receiving a nod from the goblin, Hardgrasp gestured for the young man to follow him.

As Hardgrasp led him through the great stone halls, he glanced at his companion a few times. The powerful boy easily kept up with his longer than average goblin strides, his steps silent much to the goblin's surprise considering that goblin's hearing was far sharper than a humans and was usually able to hear any human's footfalls with ease.

Obviously he would have to train his senses more.

The boy, who had been silent since they left the doors and had been admiring the artwork and design of the halls, spoke quietly to him, ignoring the slight disruptions his immense magic made upon those that they passed.

"Your halls are quite gracefully made," the boy commented, causing Hardgrasp to glance backward once. The boy's expression was sincerely admiring as he looked at the graceful arches of the building and the carefully crafted frescoes and statues placed in small alcoves as they passed.

"These halls were the work over a thousand of the best artisans of the time over the period of close to thirteen years," Hardgrasp said proudly, his delight at the honest appreciation given by someone other than a fellow goblin in his voice, "It is said that they poured their soul into their crafting of this building."

"It is certainly a masterpiece," the boy agreed before he seemed to startle and look at his goblin escort with an apologetic gaze, "but I have been rude and forgotten to introduce myself. My apologies."

Hardgrasp saw that they were almost to the Director's doors and chuckled slightly, his unease of the boy fading.

"It is of no moment, sir" he said waving away the apology and knocking on the door firmly, "I should have introduced myself first. I am Hardgrasp of the Gem Talon clan, Doorkeeper of Gringotts," he finished with a slight bow.

"Enter," the Director's firm voice called.  
As Hardgrasp began opening the large door the child spoke up.

"I thank you for the introduction and offer my own. I am Harry James Potter, Campione of the Greenwich Assembly."

Hardgrasp stumbled as he opened the door.

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Ragnuk Zurich Silverclaw, Director of the Zurich branch of Gringotts was anticipating an interesting day.

It was barely a month ago that the English branch had contacted him regarding an important account and client that had gone missing. It was standard practice that if an account had gone untouched for a period of a year then a location spell would be cast to ensure the health and welfare of the client by using the spare key that Gringotts kept as an emergency as a medium. To the English branch's surprise, when they had gone to retrieve it, the original key held by the client, or their designated caretaker of estate if they are unable to manage it, was there also indicating that in the case of this particular client, who had been too young to manage the estate, was now somehow considered an adult despite the client being only a decade old.

Now more confused and wanting to get to the bottom of this case, they had cast the necessary spell only to find that the client was in Zurich. Inside Magie Festung, headquarters of the mage association Greenwich Assembly.

Silverclaw was honestly surprised that they would contact him instead of contacting their client instead only to find out that all owls were unable to find the child and, because that Zurich Gringotts was outside the English one's domain due to territorial laws of Goblins, needed him to do so.

Silverclaw acknowledged their statement and asked for the client's name.

He had been shocked to find out it was the rather well known Boy-Who-Lived.

After dazedly agreeing, he then ended the conference with the English branch and set about lighting a fire beneath the wrinkled butts of the Intelligence Division and ordered them to set up surveillance around Magie Festung.

Not a week later he got the greatest shock of his life from a high priority status report from his surveillance team. It was so shocking that he sprayed the high grade goblin ale he was drinking all over his finished paperwork.

The Boy-Who-Lived was a God Slayer. A Campione. A Devil King.

And he was now aligned with the Greenwich Assembly.

That had answered how he was considered adult. When the Gringotts Bank was first formed a bylaw was made in the event of having a Campione as one of their clients that considered them as Kings in their own right. Meaning only they, themselves, could make decisions regarding their status with the bank. It had yet to be exercised though, even if it was carved into the very stones and magic of all Gringotts branches.

He didn't know how a Warlock descendent was able to become a Campione but this created both an intriguing opportunity and a possibly worrisome indication of what the future held. He could be the first goblin to obtain a Campione client which, in itself, would raise the status of his bank in the eyes of the Nation even if the majority of the clients assets were in English hands. The otherside of the coin was that this may mean that the Oathbreaker's Curse was beginning to unravel and may lead to the Wizards attempting to assert dominance over the Mage Associations and if they won (which he doubted) would lead to his people's subjugation.

This was a very delicate situation and a cordial link to a Campione could either help or hinder them.

Either way, he quickly had an investigation done into the young Campione's character and history and found it rather positive in comparison to the majority of his peers. Respectful of others, determined, hard-working, intelligent but most of all, young. Because of his extremely young age he could be taught to understand how things work. Not brainwashed or controlled, goodness no, that way only laid destruction and carnage, but rather shown how and why things work in such a way and let him make his own decisions tempered by a sense of morality and understanding.

He then had sent for the files on the client's assets and was quick to receive them.

Only to find that the account had been badly managed. Due to the laws of the British Ministry, only a magical human may manage an account at Gringotts (a concession made in return for sovereign rule on Gringotts land) and as such after the young Campione's parents had been killed a caretaker was appointed by the Wizengamot.

In this case Headmaster Dumbledore had chosen himself.

SIlverclaw had gone through all the transactions made by the White Whiskered Puppeteer (as he was known amongst the goblins) and found that he had been pretty much stealing from the boy. Legally.

Thankfully, there were certain limitations to what an estate caretaker could do and, as the Potter account was a vast one, the monies taken, while substantial, were less than ten percent of the total value of the account and the monies were made back by the lucrative investments of the family over the years before the next withdrawal.

Unfortunately, there was little Gringotts would be able to recoup the losses by legal means.  
Illegal means was another matter altogether and Silverclaw had ensured that a viable plan was crafted to place before the young Campione once he was contacted and the appointment was set up.

A hard series of knocks brought him back to present and, after glancing at the time, brought out the young Campione's file.

"Enter," he called as his now focused senses picked up the presence of immense power that could only belong to a Campione outside his carved oaken doors.

The doors were opened by a suddenly stumbling and pale Doorkeeper. Silverclaw watched in disbelief as the goblin almost planted his face into the floor, only for the young man behind him to swiftly grab his shoulders and hold him upright.

"Are you alright?" the Campione asked as his goblin escort began to pull himself back together.

Silverclaw only watched on, wanting to see how the boy would handle the goblin who now looked the boy with trepidation and slight fear.

"I-i am fine, my lord," Hardgrasp answered as he finally marshalled his will to keep himself composed, "I was merely surprised."

The boy gazed at the Doorkeeper intently before nodding.

Returning to protocol, Hardgrasp turned to face the Director, banging his left fist over the heart of his armour and bowing deeply.

"Lord Director. As per your written instructions, I have escorted the client to you." the Doorkeeper said formally, his face now fully composed.

"So I see," Silverclaw said dryly.

Rising to his feet, Silverclaw then gave a deep bow to the young man, much to the hidden shock of the Doorkeeper.

"Welcome to our halls, King Harry James Potter. Please take a seat as we have much to discuss."

Harry flushed for a moment in embarrassment but did as he was asked.

"You can return to your post, Doorkeeper," the Director said firmly to Harry's escort.

The Doorkeeper bowed and swiftly retreated back to his post to let his mind churn over the events he had experienced.

Silverclaw sat in his seat across from the young Campione who was trying not to look nervous.

"I am sure you are informed of why I asked you to come, your Majesty?" he said questionally.

The young Campione nodded.

"From what I understand, I am an heir to a rather lucrative and important Warlock family which had a rather large account with Gringotts in Britain and you are going to inform me of the state of the account."

Silverclaw nodded calmly in agreement and handed a file to the young man.

As the Campione read he began speaking.

"I will not waste time then. Currently you have four vaults in our British branch. One is strictly monetary with the worth of over two billion galleons. One is strictly a investment vault where all monies made by your stocks and other such things are paid into and at the end of the financial year all profits are shifted to the monetary vault. It also contains an updated record of all investments made, profits earned and a full list of all owned properties. The third vault is an expense vault from which various expenses such as fines, fees, taxes and miscellaneous spending are paid from. It has a set limit on how much can be drawn and how much it can contain. Which is approximately one million galleons. At the end of each month it is refilled to the set capacity from the monetary vault. This was also originally intended for the family of Potter as only the Head of House could access the main monies in the first vault unless given permission by the Head of House. The last vault contains all artefacts of the family such as the magical items, gemstones and raw metals, memoirs of the family, portraits, weapons and armour, a large library of rare books and miscellaneous other items which could only be freely accessed by those of Potter blood or a caretaker in a limited capacity."

Seeing the young man scanning quickly through all the pages he waited patiently for the Campione to finish. Not a minute later, the folder was gently closed and hardened green eyes met pale blue.

"I recognise the name of my so called caretaker. I also see the ... discrepancies ... in the decisions he made in my finances," here the boy's eyes narrowed and an air of anger emitted from him, "what can be done to rectify this theft?"

"Legally, very little, young King," Silverclaw said regretfully not letting his discomfort at the air the boy was exuding show in his demeanour, "Albus Dumbledore is both powerful and highly placed. He had also used all available laws to ensure he had as much control as he could get. If you want to gain it back it would have to be by non-legal means."

Harry thought for a moment, weighing the pros and cons.

"My finances are such that they recovered from this legal theft, correct?"

Silverclaw nodded.

"Your finances are such that you are still the level as you were nine years ago, which is when Albus took the role of caretaker. Essentially, you can say that you had no losses but no gains either for almost the past decade."

Harry nodded in understanding.

"Leave it be. I have no desire to borrow trouble at this time. However, I will ask that you organise a transfer of my wealth to your establishment."

Silverclaw's eyes widened slightly. To have such a client's fortune in his bank would be quite the feather in his cap.

"Are you sure, my lord? I will admit it is possible but there will probably be some large fees involved."

Harry waved off the Director's comment.

"It is better to pay a little now rather than a lot later if this Dumbledore pulls something. Just start feeling out the exact fees and transportation costs. Set everything up and I will sign the papers. I trust I can make another appointment for next week at the same time?"

"My door is always open to you, young Campione."

"Good," Harry said with a firm nod and rising to his feet, "I will not take up anymore of your precious time then, Director Silverclaw. I also have some business to attend to in Russia. It seems there is a possible appearance of a Heretic God."

A look of surprise graced the goblin's features before clearing. This would need to be shared with the Russian Director. Heretic Gods were always bad for business.

"I wish you well in your endeavours then, young King." Director Ragnuk Zurich Silverclaw said as he gave a deep bow.

"May your vaults fill and your enemies fall, Director," the Campione said, giving the traditional goblin farewell between allies or friends, "I will see myself out,"

A rather shocked goblin could only stare as a powerful young man, who had freely given him an offer or respect and friendship, strode out of the door to his office with a confident gait and a portfolio of his estate beneath his arm.

As the door closed behind the young King, Silverclaw slowly began to grin. A Campione was now a client of his bank, was moving his assets to his bank and had given him the farewell accorded between those who are friends and allies.

For the rest of the day, those who met the the Director, were wondering at the wide smile that he wore.

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Two Days Later

The private chopper slowly began to land on the helipad. Its sleek design and symbol on the side gaining the attention of the Kronotsky Nature Reserve rangers. It was not a model that the local tour operators used and the symbol, an emerald green starburst that was cornered by the alchemical symbol for saturn (not that the rangers knew that).

As the flight inspector approached, the pilot quickly got out and opened the main passenger door allowing a child of little more than ten years old out. The child was dressed warmly but tightly, like a sportsman ready for cold weather.

They were also clearly not Russian.

"Papers," the inspector demanded gruffly and was handed them by the child, much to his surprise.

A quick look over the helicopter's papers, a check of his flight schedule for incoming traffic and a double check of both allowed him to stamp the papers in approval and hand them back while keeping a copy.

"Everything is in order. I hope you enjoy the park. It is truly a remarkable place. Though there has been several disturbances lately." the ranger said.

"What kind of disturbances?" the boy asked with sharp emerald in eyes.

In perfect unaccented Russian.

After shaking off his surprise, the park ranger quickly answered his question, whilst the pilot quickly grabbed a steel briefcase from the chopper.

"It is winter and yet the animals are all acting odd. Those that should be hibernating are not and all are nervous and agitated and quick to strike out. There is also strange roars and even stranger tracks found when we searched for the source. There has also been traces of a poacher running around. We have tried to find the bastard but he keeps evading us. The best we can figure out is that he is hiding out near the geysers and is attacking whatever is causing all the noise up towards the top of the Mt. Karymsky pretty much everyday. The mountain is also starting to erupt more frequently and powerfully. Some of the locals are becoming slightly scared and superstitious."

Accepting the briefcase from the pilot, the boy nodded in understanding to the ranger.

"Thank you for informing me," he spoke calmly, surprising the ranger at the amount of maturity that he showed, "and also **return to your station and forget you saw me.**"

The voice seemed to reverberate in the ranger's head, the voice telling to relax and return to his duties and forget this ever happened. The ranger wandered dazedly back to the small post-hut that was afforded his position, accompanied by the pilot of the chopper after the boy had waved him to do so. He would only remember a normal tourist flight over the geysers.

As they had walked away to the small one person hut, Harry unlocked the briefcase and drew out the contents. A large spear made of blood rubies was attached to his back and his diamond short sword attached to his waist with a scabbard. A set of vambraces and demi-greaves soon followed. A spell hardened and empowered breast plate finished the ensemble.

He then strode to a broad tree that cast a large shadow. Once he was completely within the shadow, he faced the direction of the mountain and began to chant.

"**Darkness be banished, swift light stands against you,**"

A white light engulfed and suddenly he was moving.

The world seemed to blur by as he ran, jumped and even flew. He kept close to earth, his senses spreading out attempting to find the source of all the commotion that brought the Assembly's attention to the area.

A large spike in the local magic lines, strange animal behaviour and monstrous amounts of fire sprouting up all over the place. In addition the temperatures of the area were starting to drop more than they should at this time of year and seismic activity was approaching dangerous levels.

All of these indicated something was wrong.

He was soon at the base of the volcano and began flying close to the face of the mountain whilst wondering when he would find or sense the traces of the being or, in a worse case scenario, beings.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄!"

A massive three-toned roar filled the air followed by a massive gout of hyper intense flame followed by a howl of bloodthirsty laughter which clearly did not belong to whatever gave the roar.

'Well, that answers that?' he thought wryly as he changed course to go along the mountain rather than up it with his spear drawn.

Soon he arrived in a flash of light and stopped a little distance away from the two combatants whilst keeping his feet twitching so as to keep the Authority active.

As he watched, the great beast shift its heads around and avoid the club strikes of the giant man before it with quick steps on its mismatched feet. A moment later, fire spewed from its maw causing the giant to swear in Greek and roll to the side and come back to his feet in time to block a powerful paw strike and shove the beast back several yards.

Seeing the damage being caused to the forest, reason abandoned him for moment which caused Harry to angrily call their attention to him.

"Oi!" he yelled causing both combatants to pause in confusion, "What the hell do you lot think your doing?!"

The three-headed beast and the giant man with a club stared at the one who had interrupted their fight before, in unison, launching themselves at him club and claws bared.

As they came, Harry's reason returned causing him to say what he thought about his current predicament.

"Well, Shit."

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Well thats the end of the chapter. I have given you enough clues for you guys to guess who both of these Heretics are so please send it to me. I will also remind you that the prize is that the winner can choose a Heretic God to defeated by Harry and if they so desire the Authority to go along with it. So start guessing guys and gals.

Incidentally, I am asking for you, my fans, to decide which of these deities I should have Harry fight and defeat and which authority he should gain.

Vishnu - The Ten Supreme Incarnations (similar to Verethragna's)  
Hecate - Probably something to do with the moon and/or darkness  
Ghatokacha (Hero God of Steel)- The endless weapons he was forged into a hero from.  
Coyote - Shapeshifting in Appearance  
Morrigan / Scathach - ?  
Lugh - His skilled hands and the spears he wielded  
Itzpapalotl - Cloak of Darkness  
Tlaloc - Devastation (Able to create massive shockwaves)  
Laverna - Steal  
Inari - ?  
Amatsu no Mikaboshi - ?

Let me know what you think. Please review.

Sneak Peek

The rain came hammering down.

A tall man, glowing gold, with a golden beard and wearing a crown which rested on his golden hair looked at his opponent warily with his sword of light raised.

Harry stood before the golden glowing god and glared angrily at him. His normally happy and calm face filled with rage.

"How dare you?" Harry hissed, "How dare you harm her!"

Images of platinum hair framing a smiling and pale face flashed through his mind.

"You will not leave this place alive, o KIng," Harry snarled as darkness surrounded him.

"We shall see, boy" the God answered looking at the boy who had cratered the earth to stop him from killing the one who sealed him.

They stared at each other. One cloaked in anger and darkness with a need for vengeance and desire to protect one who was precious to him. The other bathed in a golden light and seeking his own safety by killing the one who sealed him.

At an unseen signal, they leapt at each other. The sword of light swinging to collide a fist of darkness.

Only time would decide the victor.


	6. Chapter 5

The Wild Campione

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Campione

Hey Folks,  
First up, all of you who sent in their choices for the HG, thank you and keep sending. A lot of you seem to like Tlaloc but we shall see.

Second, let us all give a big congratulations to Wargamer08. He was the first to guess one of the Heretic Gods Harry is facing right now. In particular he chose the Divine Beast correctly. As such he now has the privilege of, if he so chooses, creating a Heretic God or whatever other being that Harry will face and the Authority he will gain. However, I would ask that you stay away from Greek mythology. Apart from that, go wild.

(THE BEAST IS NOT CERBERUS)

I should also mention that no one has guessed the name of the God fighting the Beast correctly. IT IS NOT HERCULES. You will find out who it is in the start of the chapter.

Lastly, Harry did not hypnotize his pilot, he hypnotized the park ranger.

With that said, on with the show.

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Harry quickly blurred backward in a stream of light avoiding the first blows of his opponents. His former position was swiftly turned into a large crater by the great bronze club.

Gulping, Harry firmly decided to avoid that weapon at all costs.

The Beast recovered quickly from missing him and charged at him with blinding speed, the leonine head roaring in unison with the braying of the goat-like head behind it and the wordless hissing from the large serpent that served as its tail.

Harry moved quickly, never stopping for a moment, avoiding the claws and jaws of the numerous limbs. Dodging when he could and blocking with his spear when he couldn't, his Ignition boosted strength barely enough to turn aside those that he did. So focused was his attention upon the Chimera that he was almost killed by the other.

"You dare to interfere with my Hunt, boy?" the voice of the giant roared as the air whistled with the sound of the club's swing approaching Harry's unprotected back. As the club approached, the Chimera also lashed out with the serpent tail.

His eyes widening he tried to dodge both, his body blurring with speed and twisting desperately to evade the strikes.

He almost succeeded.

He was able to ward off the serpent with the spear tip and shove himself away from a claw and fang strike but was hit with a glancing blow from the club, which still sent him flying sideways.

Pain filled Harry's mind as he flew and rolled along the ground before he recovered, his mind putting the pain on the back burner despite his no doubt broken ribs despite the supposed unbreakable bones of a Campione, never having lost momentum and thus his hold on [Light Messenger] or of his red spear. Obviously he needed better armour.

His opponents had gone back to fighting each other which gave him the chance to use another Authority.

Still moving slightly, he incanted the words that summoned his pack and used a much larger amount than when he called them forth in training or when he faced Sraosha.

**"The Black Father calls,  
Our brothers with fangs howl,  
From the darkness stalks the fangs,  
Which feed upon the light."**

Once more a packs of wolves appeared, massive black and one hundred strong, and at his unspoken order charged his enemies, howling madly as they approached.

It wasn't as effective as he hoped.

The Chimera merely ignored the strikes from the wolves fangs and kept going for the giant. Those that got in its way were swatted aside with a paw, had their throats torn from them by the serpent or were ripped apart by the lion's fangs or the goat's incredibly sharp horns.

The giant was having an even easier time. With his size comparable to a three storey house, which was similar to the Chimeras, he was able to use the club to hit many wolves with an idle swing and still fight the Chimera.

Strangely though, a simple touch of the club was able to dismiss the wolves thus indicating that the club itself had properties.

However badly that his wolves were losing numbers, still more were summoned as each was destroyed. Which kept his enemies attention on each other and the wolves while ignoring him.

Harry grimaced in pain and annoyance at the futility of his Authority against the two. His wolves may have defeated Sraosha, a god of Steel, but these two were a whole different kettle of fish.

He frowned harshly at the giant, trying to determine who he was. The giant was large and had cursed in Greek, had a large bronze club and had spoken angrily about him interrupting a Hunt.

Harry's eyes widened in realisation. Orion the Hunter. Son of Poseidon or born beneath the earth in a hide of an ox filled with the essence of Zeus, Poseidon and Hermes. A Hero God of Earth. Able to walk on the waves and considered the greatest hunter, equal to Artemis. Was either killed by Artemis through the machinations of her brother, Apollo, or by a scorpion sent by Gaea after he boasted that he would kill all the beasts in the world.

Harry scowled deeply as he kept an eye on the fight. This would be difficult with what he possessed at the moment. He would have to dismiss his wolves and use that to even stand a chance.

He stood tall and straight and incanted the words of his strongest Authority while, at the same time, relinquishing his hold on the [Shepherd of Wolves]. As his opponents suddenly stumbled at the sudden loss of their harrying foes, Harry's voice rang out.

**"The sun shines,  
And is engulfed in darkness,  
Only to rise once more,  
With bright sword in hand,  
To guard and care,  
And seek burning vengeance."**

The Beast and God turned at his voice only a look into a bright light causing them to flinch before it died leaving an awe inspiring sight.

Before them stood a the form a knight made of pure light. It was by far smaller than them but the Hunter's and the Beast's instincts made them wary as they felt the immense power within the small (to them) frame.

Harry floated in the light of the knight form surrounding him like armour. His spear was returned to his back, almost useless in this form. With a thought, a spear of light was formed, replacing his ruby one, in the knight's left hand and launched toward the Chimera with a yell.

It tore through the air, a mere flash to another's eyes, and was barely dodged by a frantic Chimera and struck the chest of a wide-eyed Orion.

An echoing BOOOM resounded through the air as the spear exploded and sent Orion tumbling and rolling down the mountain.

Harry grunted in satisfaction in the aura of his Authority. With Orion removed from play he was free to attack the Chimera with all his might and attention without fear of being struck and killed from behind. Without another thought, he launched himself towards the now growling Chimera.

As he came towards the dangerous beast, he swiftly brought a massive twenty foot spear into being and held it before him as he charged. The Chimera swatted at the spear only for Harry to shift it away and flurry it forward and sideways in the beast's face causing to back up with a snarl.

A loud hiss caused Harry to suddenly leap back as the snake tail whipped out at him from the beast's underbelly. A twitch of thought and the great spear turned into an absurdly large sword that was swiftly brought down towards the angrily hissing head.

A roar of pain, agony and absolute animalistic rage echoed off the mountain as the head was severed.

Harry hopped back quickly from the furious beasts flurries, its rage lending it strength and speed. He sweated slightly as the beast kept speeding up, pursuing him, never letting him escape melee range. With his [Light Messenger] replaced by [Vengeful Guardian of Radiance] and even with the use of Ignition, the beast was faster than he was and it would only be a matter of time before he was struck.

He was.

The Chimera's speed aided it as he had dodged a left paw swipe, only to be rammed by the goat's horns. The force was massive and sent him flying and rolling. As he came to stop against a large tree. He was on his feet again, the aura protecting him from damage, and, after glancing at the beast, he sprinted and leaped away in a large circle.

Avoiding the flames the Chimera now spread from its gaping maw.

Even in the aura or protection, the flames felt like they scorched his skin. The devastation behind was as though a volcano of heat and power had erupted. Massive trees were turned to ash in moments, rocks melted the same as the snow. These were not normal flames.

His face set into a grim line, he tried to find an answer. If he kept running the flames would eventually capture him when he tired. Which wouldn't be for a while yet due to the [Vengeful Guardian of Radiance] drawing some of its power power from the sun. He also had to finish this soon, the longer it went, the better the chance of Orion getting his big arse back into the fight and it would go back to a free for all.

As he ran in a circle, he made and fired bright spears at the beast. They never penetrated its hide and only angered it more. The explosions they gave off, though, gave it a bit of damage. These were only quick weapons made on the fly, however, and didn't have the strength of the missile that had struck Orion. He needed to get within melee range with a powerful [Light Weapon] to kill it but it was canny enough to make him keep his distance but within range of its breath weapon. Anytime he tried to pull back to gain time, it would advance, always keeping him pressured.

Pressured...

A line of a manga he had read flickered in his mind as he moved and dodged.

'_Abandon your fear. Look forward. Move forward and never stop. You'll age if you pull back. You'll die if you hesitate.'_

Those words had evoked a strong feeling in Harry. The will to never stop trying, to meet all obstacles head on and drive through them. His world before becoming Campione had been terrible but he was able tough it out. His training with the Stals had been gut wrenchingly hard but he had pushed through and earned their respect. His tutoring set by Morraine was difficult for him but he still studied hard and managed to get good marks in subjects that would give senior high school students problems.

This was no different.

As he ran in the worn and burn path around the slightly bleeding and bruised but still breathing fire Chimera, he focused his magic into his next three actions. He crafted a powerful and large spear, easily thirty feet long and three wide. The fact it was made of light made sure it did not hinder his speed.

He then prepared for the for next move. He slowly built up for an Ignition step. His circling speed dropped slightly as he split his concentration.

The fires came closer.

His magic built up to the maximum.

The flames brushed the aura's heels, making a slight burning sensation tingle in his mind and was summarily ignored.

The world seemed to stand still to Harry for a moment as he gazed at his target.

He released it.

His body suddenly shot toward the Chimera instead of around it. His movements precise, quick and with only one goal in mind.

Kill.

His body was a streak of light as it slammed into the fiery breath of the beast. Harry disappeared from view for a moment before appearing on the other side of the flame.

In front of the beast.

Below its head.

With the great spear extended.

With a roar that was an equal to beast's, Harry slammed the weapon through its hide into the hollow of its throat, piercing it.

The fire breath abruptly died as the monster choked. The large light spear preventing further fires from emerging.

The beast shook wildly trying to remove the spear from its body, all to no avail.

Harry had a firm grip on the spear despite the heavy burns he had sustained from stupidly going through the fire to get within striking distance of the creature and the goat was unable to reach his position and could only bray in fear.

The struggles gradually became less and less until it finally fell on its side with a great crash, still choking and attempting to futilely breath. Golden blood ran from its leonine maw and the goat lulled to the side, weak and unable to fight.

Harry gripped the spear tightly as he braced his legs against the melted ground and, with all the strength of his Authority, shoved the spear as deep as it could go.

A last choked gasp rose from the leonine throat before its shocked eyes, in both heads, glazed over in death before it began to slowly turn to a golden dust.

Harry relaxed for a moment and slumped into the shadow of nearby boulder and panted harshly to catch his breath. [Vengeful Guardian of Radiance] was a powerful Authority and consumed power by the bucket loads despite it being mitigated by it also drawing power from the sun. His power levels were a bit low at that moment so he needed to catch his breath.

Unfortunately, the world wasn't about to give him a break.

A series of shrieking whistles filled the air causing Harry to look up at the source. A volley of arrows made from coruscating blue-white fire fell towards him.

Harry's mind blanked for a moment before a word escaped his lips that perfectly described his predicament.

"Bugger,"

The arrows landed.

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The Hunter growled in satisfaction as he saw the great explosion created by the [Star Arrows]. A great plume of blue-white fire that reached the sky and wiped out the entire cliff face. If he had put his full power into it, the entire mountain would have been destroyed.

"No one interrupts a Hunt, boy" he rumbled softly as he gently rubbed the blackened and burned flesh on his chest, evidence of the boy's power, "Especially mine."

The great black bow that he had used to fire the missiles glowed a soft silver before returning to the bronze club form of the [Slayer].

Orion snorted in annoyance before turning and trudging away, his massive form easily shoving away the snow before shrinking down from [Mountain] to move easier, as his great club did the same. He had new prey to find now that he lost the chance at slaying the [Beast of Disaster], the Chimera. Thanks to boy who had to stick his nose where it didn't belong.

'Still' Orion thought, 'that small Godslayer makes for a decent second best. Especially as he had fought and killed the Beast.'

Slightly more happy and distracted at the thought of a dead Godslayer on his trophy list, he almost missed the attack.

Almost.

A glint of light was all the warning Orion had as his now human sized form leapt agilely away from a blindingly fast sword stroke. Even then he managed to get a deep cut along his side.

Hissing in surprise and slight pain, he held his side before having to once more evade the white glowing figure as it literally flew in for another strike.

Orion snarled loudly in Greek as he was once more only just able to avoid the full strike and another cut appeared on the opposite side to the previous cut. He had swung his club in retaliation, only for figure to speed backward in avoidance.

Orion recognised the form. It was the Authority that the boy had first used to engage him and the Chimera. That meant he had survived his attack. That his new prey was still alive after he had struck it down.

His Hunter's pride would not allow that.

He eyed the still moving form as it hovered out of his club's reach in furious anger.

"How," he growled menacingly, his presence filling the air with the feeling of a large predator, "How did you survive?" his voice was now guttural and primal. Almost animalistic.

The boy said nothing, his body still moving though it didn't look in the best condition. His clothes were mostly gone, as was his armour, leaving only a bare chest and burnt pants. He had numerous burns or blisters on his front chest and face. His vambraces and greaves were still good if battered but he was now bare foot. In his hands were a ruby spear and a diamond short sword that was speckled with golden ichor. Obviously the weapon that had wounded him. He was also breathing heavily and hitching his breath slightly. Obvious evidence of internal injuries and exhaustion.

He would be easy prey for this Hunter.

Orion relaxed his rage and grinned, fierce and feral, before leaping towards the Godslayer. Again he was evaded but he kept after the little runt, never giving him a chance to rest. The boy in this form was fast but he was obviously on his last legs and didn't have the strength to strike a lasting blow against him or match his blows. He only evaded and made glancing cuts on the Hunter, which were healing as quickly as he was wounded thanks to [Earthborn].

It was now a battle of the age old dilemma between speed and strength. A deadly game of cat and mouse. The boy wasn't able to inflict lasting damage on him but he also wasn't able to strike the boy at all.

It was a battle of attrition. One where the Hunter had the advantage.

It was only a matter of time before the boy made a mistake because of pain or exhaustion that came from fighting the Chimera.

It finally came when the boy was evading the club that he missed the great fist that came for him and was to slow to dodge again as it knocked him out of the air into the snow and into a fast roll and came to a slumped stop against a large boulder with a loud thud and a sickening crack as his right shoulder met the boulder at an odd angle, dislocating it.

A loud gasp of pain was all that escaped the exhausted boy.

Orion smirked slightly. The roll had caused the boy to lose his weapons. He could see the sword of the side well away from the boy. He glanced around and saw the spear sticking out of a small drift and his smirk widened.

The boy was defenceless.

He chuckled in bloody delight as he approached the downed form.  
"You may have stolen my prey before, boy, and wounded me," he said, gesturing to the burnt wound on his torso, "and for that you have a degree of my respect. Respect enough for me to see you as worthy prey."

He chuckled again as he now stood over the child, looking down into green eyes that were darker than his own. He idly began swinging his club, which began to glow a blue-white.

"Don't worry, boy. This won't hurt much but before I strike you down, do you have any last words?" Orion said with an evil grin.

The boy dazedly mumbled something.

"What was that, child?" Orion mocked, "it was too weak for me to hear."

Green eyes met green again and they became more focused, sharper.

"I said," the boy spoke clearly, " 'Ikorose, Shinsou' "

Orion's face was puzzled for a moment before a loud schlunk! was heard.

The Hunter's face betrayed his surprise and bewilderment as he looked down at a ruby shaft piercing through his chest, right in the burnt portion of his chest which was directly over his heart. In addition the shaft was holding him above the ground by a few inches thus making [Earthborn] unable to heal him. He looked down the shaft to find it emerging from where the child had rested his left hand in a small pile of snow and was also resting against the boulder that held the child up.

His last thoughts as he returned to his Myth was how the boy had managed to use his spear when it was so far away from him.

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Harry watched the fading existence of Orion the Hunter with a look of relief. He was absolutely exhausted and in a far bit of pain but he had managed to win. He chuckled slightly as remembered how he had escaped the bastard's arrows.

When he had sat down in the shadow of the boulder, he had deactivated the Authority, thus allowing it to go to passive mode. As such, the arrows had instead hit a field at least seven metres in front of him and he had also started to activate the [Light Messenger] in teleportation form. He had barely started teleporting when the arrows hit and had gotten tagged by the starfire the arrows were made of as he vacated the area.

As for killing Orion, he managed to pull off using [Abundant Earth] without the spell words and had used part of boulder's mass in conjunction with the broken shaft of his ruby spear to extend it quickly enough to penetrate the giant's skin and kill him.

The 'Ikorose, Shinsou' was a bit of an unneeded smartass comment but what could he say, he had just been swatted like an annoying fly so he wanted a small form of revenge and he loved that manga. Even more now that it had saved his ass not once but twice in the span of an hour.

Besides, weapons, particularly swords, were cool.

(Far away, a certain idiot swordsman sneezed.)

Not seeing any reason to remain where he was was any longer, he heaved himself to his feet with a hiss of pain from his various injuries and collected his sword and the top half of his spear and slowly, painfully, set about making his way to the helipad he had originally come from.

He really needed to get home to heal, even if he has to face the most terrifying person in the Assembly, that is Doctor Rosalind Bern and her unique bedside manner,

As he staggered off, he left behind a destroyed cliff, forest and a very changed landscape.

Not a bad day for a Campione.

Now if he could just remember which way to go...

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In a place beyond humanity and all other realms, but known to them as Myth, three sets of eyes watched the swaying and almost drunkenly staggering form of the young Campione.

Eyes as black as the abyss watched his form almost hungrily as he gripped the wooden haft of his polearm tightly.

An endless amount of eyes from the second figure, glowing electric blue, watched the boy with an air of patience and ease, his numerous wings fluttering.

The last, with eyes as red as blood, stood tall and draped with numerous weapons. The chains holding him to the jagged rocks of the wall giving little discomfort as he analyzed the child warrior.

Each of them not knowing that another watched. All of them with plans for the boy.

Time will tell who would have the boy king in their web.

Time will always tell.

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Well folks how did you like the chapter?

Just so you guys know I will be showing you guys the Authorities he gained at the start of the next chapter.

Cheers and please review.


	7. Chapter 6

The Wild Campione

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Campione

Hey, folks.  
I see that many of you enjoyed my chapter. It would also please you to know that I intend to make my action scenes even better.

A shout out to Wargamer08, please PM me with your Heretic God/Authority you want included.

A bit of spoilers for you guys. This chapter will have little to no action and will be focused on Harry's day to day life as a Campione and clearing up his magical progress.

For those who require a time line, Harry killed Dabog during the Christmas holidays after his ninth (9th) birthday. The fight against Orion and Chimera took place one year later in the Christmas Holidays after his tenth (10th) birthday. As of the start of this chapter, Harry is now within a week of celebrating his eleventh (11th) birthday in the year 20xx. Precise year dates will not be given but please assume that they are current.

Also, here are the Authorities Harry obtained

[Molten Core]

The Chimera was a harbinger and omen of natural disasters such as volcanoes.

This Authority allows Harry to summon the Fires of the Earth's Core. Hotter than the surface of the sun, anything they touch is burned away. A fire storm, camp fire, fire animals (Fiendfyre) even a flame thrower, these can all be made. It is a force of absolute burning destruction able to destroy cities in a single blow if required.

At least that's the basics.

It's true potential is somewhat different. By sacrificing something to the flame, like a gem stone or weapon or even water etc, it can gain different properties such as invisibility, hardening and other such properties. This is a symbol of the Chimera being, arguably, the archetype of all monsters made up of many different animals.

There are limits, however. When something is sacrificed to (read burned by) the flame it will take on the properties of the object, if the user chooses. This can be further amplified by combining up to three different properties into one 'flame'. The flames cannot be remembered to convert it to a certain flame at will but must be used when the sacrifice takes place. Also the strength of the flame is directly correlated to the importance or value of the sacrifice. An old sword would be more important than a piece of scrap metal, for example, and thus would be much stronger despite the similarities.

It is even able to consume and use Authorities of both user and opponent if directed to do so to alter it's properties but the user must first overcome the power behind the opponents Authority in order to do so.

A minor aspect of the Authority allows for the user to understand the properties and abilities of the 'flame' when it is created.

[Hunter without Equal]

Orion was famed as a hunter and was disputably the Greatest among them and an equal or better of the Huntress Artemis herself.

This allows Harry to take on aspects of the Hunter that was Orion. In particular, it allows Harry to have his senses taken to a completely different level with keen eyesight, hearing and others to the point that it is ridiculous. Though that can be a disadvantage. It also allows Harry to use [Slayer], a weapon that is arguably Orion's greatest strength. It was originally a bronze club with heavy anti-Beast properties that could transform into a bow that could launch [Star Arrows] strong enough to level mountains.

It is not so any longer.

[Slayer] is now a transformative weapon that can become any weapon worthy of a hunt like spears, bows, clubs etc. It's greatest power, however, is its adaptive properties. It is able to match its attributes to become something that an opponent is weak against or to put it in a better way, the weapon becomes Anti - whoever the opponent is but I must clarify that it does not seal their powers like Godou's does. Essentially this allows Harry to become a predator/hunter to his opponent/prey thus gaining a natural advantage and thus boosting his natural physical statistics to exceed that of his opponent.

There is a catch however.

Harry must have knowledge of the opponents nature for him to use [Slayer] similar to Godou's [Warrior with the Golden Sword]. If he does not have a great enough understanding or false understanding then the [Slayer] will not be very effective and it can only be used against one opponent at a time though if he remembers the weakness he can quickly switch attributes if he fights numerous foes.

[Cloud]

In medieval times the story of Orion was considered a representation of a storm cloud forming. In addition his reputed father, was he-who-brings-storms-to-land Poseidon, who also gave him the ability to walk upon the waves.

This Authority allows Harry to produce and create clouds that he and others he allows to walk upon them or even create a solid wall of clouds that can block even strikes from a Heretic God. Further use of the ability will allow Harry to become cloud, ie intangible, to physical strikes and able to spread himself out thin enough to become invisible whilst still retaining his sense of surroundings. It is more difficult in areas lacking in moisture but manageable with more power. This is Harry's adaption of the simple storm summoning that Orion had.

Hope you all like my Authorities. Now on with the show.

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Dawn slowly broke over the city of Zurich bathing it in it's fragile golden light on a delicate summer's day.

The light passed through the wide French doors to alight upon a slumbering figure curled up beneath the dark green blankets.

The figures eyes crinkled slightly before flickering open and squinting into the sunlight. The figure groaned slightly before tossing away the blankets and rearing up to stretch his limbs in order to awaken properly.

Harry grumbled slightly as he rolled out of bed, his long hair a mess, and stumbled naked and bare-foot to the opulent bathroom. A quick blast of cold water from the shower woke him all the way up and kick started his mind into awareness. His thoughts were relaxed as he finished his now warm shower and other bathroom duties.

Walking out of the now steamed up but fading bathroom, surprisingly bone dry, he grabbed his laid out clothing and swiftly dressed. Underwear (briefs thankfully) and long black trousers was first followed by a dark jade button up long sleeved micro fibre shirt. A dark vest and a burgundy tie were next. Black socks and leather shoes finished the ensemble.

A critical glance in the dressing table mirror earned himself a nod of approval to himself before he sat before it and started to brush out his waist length hair with a special comb and brush enchanted to ensure straight and untangled hair in the first pass rather than repeating the process endlessly until he got it.

He nodded to himself once more, this time in satisfaction, before grabbing a hair tie and wrapped around the base of his hair, near the skull, before focusing a flow of magic into it.

"Sitoa," he vocalised.

His hair suddenly seemed to become alive as it started to weave itself into a firm and tight braid.

Knowing that it would take a bit of time, Harry reached out and grasped the sheet of paper containing his schedule for that day. A quick run through saw the usual daily sessions with Alexei (today was workouts and stamina training with strategy afterwards) and Morraine (Maths was that day much to his annoyance). There was also a meeting with Julian in regards to ongoing talks with various non-human groups.

He frowned slightly at the remembrance at the cause for the necessity of the talks.

The Wizarding sect or, Warlocks as they were properly referred to as, in Europe had begun to increase the various restrictions that they had already placed upon such beings. Centaurs, Merpeople, Vampires and Werewolves and many others had been marginalised and prejudiced against by the sect for a long time now. Various efforts by their own people to halt such things over the centuries via violence and discussion had been met with a scorched earth policy from the Warlocks. Despite that the magical beings were stronger in magical power and capacity, the Warlocks had been able to match and rise above them with the versatility that their focuses had given them and their sheer numbers. The magus associations that had had cordial ties or alliances had attempted to help and aid them, only to get rebuked due to the distrust that many of them had gained due to the ongoing battles between them and the Warlocks. Some individuals still had their friendships with individual magi but, as a whole, their dislike and even hatred for humans overpowered their common sense. So the magi were forced to officially stay out of the conflict.

However, despite the covert actions by the magi, the beings began to fall and eventually were forced to treat with the Warlocks.

After immense amounts of blood was spilled on both sides, the treaty was struck and signed by the representatives of the various races involved. It essentially said that while within Warlock held ground, which was sadly the majority of Europe aside from a few small pockets of free held land, they would submit to Warlock, or Wizards as they then started calling themselves, authority and laws.

This had almost made the many magical species who were sapient and, most probably, more intelligent than the average wizard little more than animals in the eyes of the Wizards.

The beginnings of the aftermath of the treaty weren't as bad then due to that both sides were tired of fighting and focused on repairing their societies.

After a few decades though, the wizards began to enact more and more laws to restrict them. Werewolf baiting, Centaur hunting and other such entertainments, while frowned upon and not known to the general populace, was not illegal and could be found if you had right amount of coin. They had even managed to enslave a whole race to the point that they could not live without being bound to a wizarding location or family.

Centuries had past and prejudice had both ebbed and flowed. Some won their independence like the goblins and some were on the verge of being wiped out and had been forced into hiding for centuries. Again and again, attempts of help were made by Magi and still they were rebuked.

It was in the last decade, after the Voldemort situation, that Ministries had begun to really start hammering down on the magical being populace. Quiet pogroms, large amounts of propaganda against so called 'Dark Creatures' and various other acts.

The People (as the collective magical beings called themselves) had given up hope of existing beyond the next century.

Until Harry came along.

Campiones before him had little to do with the People save in their defeat and destruction. Namely because they were considered 'unimportant' due to them not being true Divine Beasts and as such were not worth the air expended to talk to.

Harry was different.

The name Potter had been known, in a very positive manner, through the People's grapevine for the last five hundred years. This was because one of the People had saved the life of the heir apparent at the time. The current head was decent, for a warlock, and very grateful and had willingly given his sworn word that he and all those that would come after him would aid the People whenever needed. Despite the heavy skepticism, the People had accepted his word, expecting nothing to come of it.

How wrong they were.

In the Wizengamot, on the streets and from the lofty heights of Hogwarts, the Potter Family Head tried and succeeded in making a difference to the indifference and prejudice that the People faced from the wizarding populace. It was only small but it was a difference and every family head afterward had carried that belief and tradition. They might not have all succeeded but they all gave it their best and true effort.

The People had been grateful. It had always puzzled the Magi that they had accepted the aid of the Potters over their own but they had ignored it and pushed the Potter's agenda forward with subtle movements.

However, after his parent's death, Dumbledore had taken the reins of the family votes and influence and had quietly worked to reverse many of the protective measures that the Potter family and had fought, bled and even died for.

The People had mourned the loss of a great and proven ally.

Before they had found out about him being a Campione.

Knowing the reputation of the Potters and the raw power and authority that a Campione could command, they had contacted him through Director Silverclaw and were now entering into negotiations between them for, much as they disliked it and it hurt their pride, protection.

That was about a month ago and inroads were being made into firming the relationship between the People and those of the Greenwich Assembly.

There were a few desires on both sides that needed to be met such as; an equal representation of the People among the Assembly's council and guaranteed aid for allied personnel involved in field missions close to a People's homeland and a dozen or so other minor details.

The Pallas Treaty, as it was being called, was now entering the final stages and, if nothing else cropped up, expected to be officially signed within the next fortnight and would, in effect, create a powerful alliance between the People and Harry, who was the one they had dealt with, as well as the GA by extension.

Harry sighed it in annoyance. The talks were tedious but necessary and the company he met and the stories some were able to tell about his family made it all worth it.

The last item on his list was a meeting with Jacob Osterland, the Head of R&D.

Harry grinned slightly at the thought of the cheerful and intelligent man. Jacob was always thinking up new ideas for field equipment to be used by the Stals and creating new spells and investigating in tandem with Julian and Morraine the various ancient magical artifacts that were found in the GA's area of influence.

He was easily one of his most favourite tutors in his area of expertise. Indeed, it was even with the aid of the inventor that Morraine, Alexei and himself were able to find his own special area in magic aside from simple body enhancement.

Serpent Magic.

It had surprised them all at first that he was able to speak to snake when he had first came into contact with a small asp that the old inventor had taken as a pet and caused quite an amount of research into it.

By various processes, they were all able to determine that the gift was somehow from his wizarding body and soul before the Campione transformation. Either way, it opened up a branch of magic that was both potent and extremely rare. As in only rumoured about in whispers over the millennia.

The whispered abilities of Serpent magic were numerous. Healing, Wards/Runes/Barriers and Curses were the more well known ones. There were other aspects mentioned around the edges of older surviving texts but it was unknown what they were. One of the major advantages, however, was that it was a form of magic that did not need a deity's aid to use it.

Legend had it a mage, whose name was long forgotten, did a service to an unremembered serpent deity and was granted the boon of being able to speak with them, or even become them, to the mage and all that followed after him. The going theory was that family eventually became wizards but still retained the gift of Serpent Speech as it was a gift given in return for a service rendered rather than a loyalty oath and thus was unable to be taken from the offender.

It had its downsides however.

As a serpent was a symbol of dualism, use of it allowed the negative or 'evil' nature of a practitioner to overwhelm their inherent personality, if they weren't careful. This was shown in the Oriental myth of Yashagorou, student and friend of Jiraiya, accepting or bargaining for power from a powerful but ill reputed serpent, taking the name Orochimaru, and then seeking out his former mentor to kill him.

Another downside was the fact that it's spells drew all its power from the mage that used it and thus made it a few steps weaker than a regular mage's divinely fuelled spells but, with Harry's power as a Campione, this was pretty much a moot point.

In either case, Harry was now a practicing Serpent Mage. Something that had not been seen for a very very very long time. As it was such a rare, ancient and obscure art, it was hard to find texts on its use but Harry was able to offer large incentives with his Authority of [Abundant Earth] in the form of rare metals and gems in return for such invaluable items and reaped the rewards. He kept the [Golden Apples] a close secret though.

A tug on his hair jolted him out of his wandering thoughts as the hair tie indicated that it had finished braiding his hair. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed it and he set a brisk pace towards the Dining Hall.

He flowed through the halls with the graceful step of a dancer or warrior until he arrived at his destination and stepped through the doors.

WHAM! CRASH!

Only to be flung out again by a small blonde figure's flying tackle.  
"Big brother," the blonde figure cried hugging his waist tightly as they lay in the entrance to the Dining Hall, "I've missed you," the child was now wailing.

Bringing himself into a seated position, Harry looked exasperated at the young blonde girl with green eyes.

That were currently tearing up and looking at him pitifully.

He groaned slightly before he levered himself to his feet and dragged the young child to her feet as well.

"Samantha," he grumbled, "what have I told you about tackling me?"

"Not to?" she questioned innocently and still tearfully.

"Correct. So why did you?" he grunted as he stretched his back a bit.

"You haven't been here for a long time. I wanted to see you." she whined.

"It has only been two days since we last saw each other, kid. That is hardly a long time."

"It is to me." she said firmly, still grasping his waist.

Harry gave up and smiled ruefully and rubbed the young lady's curly hair.

Samantha was a young girl who had some potent gifts as a Hime-Miko and some of the more unscrupulous beings in existence had sought her out to either use her as a sacrifice or as servant with a useful gift and had lost her parents in that manner. He had found her on one of his training trips with the Stals and had protected her from those that came after her. Man or monster. As such she looked at him as a big brother.

Her gift was both potent and unusual. If it were to be called anything it would Sovereign Land.

In some manner, she was able to 'claim' a portion of land and, depending on her level of power, was able to either strengthen allies, weaken enemies and even sense everything within the area that she claimed. It would make her an almost perfect guardian but an average field operative when she got older.

When she was first brought to Magie Festung she got on very well with Alexei and had, in time, been unofficially adopted by him and then little eight year old had taken to calling him Papa, much to the amusement of the other members of the Assembly. The Stals were also taken by her cheerful and slightly childish nature and were more than a little protective of her.

A slight cough drew Harry's attention from the child made him look directly into light green eyes framed by platinum blonde hair.

"I an glad to see that the little Samantha is getting on well." commented Princess Alice with a slight giggle, "but I believe it is time for breakfast."

Harry smiled at his first friend and shooed a pouting Samantha off to get her meal. Once she had left, Harry smiled warmly and extended his arm in an exaggeratedly gentleman like manner.

"May I escort you to our meal, dear lady?" he spoke mock floridly, a hint of mischief in his green eyes.

"You may, my lord," she answered accepting the arm and the two strode for their meal. One a younger male of great power mentally, physically and magically. The other, a pale shadowy ghost of herself that enjoyed the company of the young man despite him not being in her physical presence. Both enjoying each other's company at a simple morning meal.

After which the girl would fade back to her residence in Britain and the boy would continue his duties.

All in all a regular morning at Magie Festung.

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When Harry walked into the meeting with Jacob at the end of the day, he was quite tired.

Alexei had put him and the rest of the Stals through the ringer in the exercises and then proceeded to give the hardest strategy problems that he could cook up in his sadistic mind, all of which had to be answered correctly or do triple exercises.

Harry was one of the few that was able to get them correct due to his extracurricular studies. The rest were slumped onto the ground, unconscious, after the punishment.

Maths with Morraine and her daughter, Anya, had been been stressful as it involved a heavy amount of algebra but he managed to get through it. Through Anya made it look like she could do this sort of thing in her sleep, which she probably could considering her age and who her mother was. Harry was contemplating whether he could get away with appointing the teenager as his secretary considering her competence but held off on that thought.

The meeting with the People was long but rewarding. The final details had been decided and approved by both sides so the signing was being moved forward to the las day of July. It had also given him the chance to bring up a matter with Silverclaw.

He wanted the goblins to craft him a set of armour.

Silverclaw's eyes had widened but Harry was quick to speak more on the matter. He would supply the metal and pay the labour costs and the final fee along with the transfer of ownership. The goblins need only to bring their skill to the table as Harry freely admitted that they were better than any magus or wizard, so he had decided to go for the best. Especially considering he would be facing Heretic Gods with this armour.

Silverclaw had appreciated the blunt honesty from the young Campione and agreed to the commission and would have his best smiths work on it. Harry had nodded and calmly retrieved a heavy suitcase and passed it over to the Director saying that it contained the metal.

A glance inside by the Director almost had him choking in disbelief.

Mithril and Adamantine.

The greatest of metals which were barely seen or found anymore sat in an unprepossessing case. Something that the greatest smith would give his hands to be able to use, forge and craft and could die a good death having done so.

A trembling Director had looked at the boy and found him looking calmly back. A further statement that he would be willing to give such metals as payment for services rendered had the Director nodding dumbly and stumble slightly back to Gringotts with the case of metals and rough plans for the armour held tightly in his arms, leaving a grinning Harry.

"Ah! Harry, you are here already," spoke Jacob from behind the desk in his office. Harry also noticed a broad shouldered and tall man with golden hair and eyes behind spectacles was rising from the seat before Jacob.

"It is that time, Jacob" Harry smiled.

"Indeed," he chuckled before turning to his guest, "thank you for your time, Nicholas, and I hope that your property returns to you,"

"As do I, old friend," the man's voice was solemn, "As do I."

Harry kept an eye on the man as he passed him on the way out of the office until the door clicked shut behind him.

"Interesting company," Harry commented, "he felt rather powerful, almost on par with some of the higher ranked People."

Jacob chuckled as he waved Harry into his seat.

"I would hope so. He has been around for a long time."

"Old age generally does bring power." Harry agreed, "Magically wise anyway."

"Still, that is neither here nor there," Osterland said with a clap of his hands before pulling out a file and opening it to a blank sheet and rested a pen on it.

"So, how is your training with your Authorities and Serpent magic progressing?"

As he spoke the words were inscribed by the pen.

"Pretty well, actually. I have actually managed to achieve an Avatar state with [Vengeful Guardian of Radiance]. [Molten Core] is a pretty versatile Authority and will require more experimentation to achieve mastery. I mastered my wolf summoning and earth Authorities some time ago. [Light Messenger] is about as far along as I can take it. My other two will take more time. Especially [Hunter without Equal] because it works based on my own knowledge, which means I will have to study my History a great deal more." Harry answered at length before stopping with a frown.

"And your Serpent Magic?" Jacob questioned.

"Frustrating," Harry growled, "I know some of what is reputed to do but nothing on how. Unless I can get a hold of some detailed texts or knowledge, the best I can do would be brute force regeneration at a massive magical expenditure or minor hypnotic paralysis. The rest is out of my reach at this point in time."

"That is unfortunate," Jacob agreed.

"No kidding," Harry snorted.

"Don't worry, my lord" Jacob comforted, "I am sure something will turn up."

"Yeah. In a century or so. Maybe," the young man responded sarcastically.

"It is not like you don't have time, my lord" Jacob returned with a smirk as he closed and put away the file, "Still I believe that our time together has drawn to a close."

Harry glanced at the clock and nodded in agreement as he rose from the chair and bade the old man farewell and walked towards dinner.

The dinner was eaten quickly and dessert even more so. This allowed to get an early night.

His last thought before he drifted off to sleep that it was just another day at the Greenwich Assembly.

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In a distant place a meeting was taking place.

Upon a dark throne sat a woman of pale features that glowed slightly even with the lack of light in the dark cave. Around her gathered seven androgynous figures, close but not touching. A snorting of a large beast was heard from the back of the cave.

"It is nearly time," the dread voice of the woman echoed around the cavern making the figures writhe and moan.

"When the Veil is thinned then we shall bring him back. Unloose the chains that bind him." the voice grew louder.

"But," the voice now quieted, "the key is still needed and must be obtained and prepared before the Veil is thinned."

"It will be no problem with it being so weak. But we still need the key."

"A key of life."

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Hey folks.  
Hope you enjoyed the chapter.  
Please review.


	8. Chapter 7

The Wild Campione

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Campione

Hey folks,  
I hope you all enjoyed my last chapter despite it being pretty much a filler one. I have also confirmed from Wargamer08 what deity Harry will face in the furture but I am still waiting to see what Authority he cooks up.

In regards to the last scene of the chapter I will accept any guesses but I will say she is an obscure deity. She is an Earth Goddess.

Have fun guessing.

Now on with the show.

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It was the morning of September First that saw a change in Harry's life once more.

Despite what was thought in the final meeting in regards to hammering out the treaty, it was not signed on his birthday. According to the centaur herds to do so them was to invite ill luck and Harry was far from unwilling to listen to beings who were both wiser and more knowledgable than himself and many others in regards to such things. It was then postponed until the first day of September.

The signing would take place in a sacred site to many of the People. A place of peace and arbitration. None could raise arms in that place, save for the most blasphemous and demonic of beings.

The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi.

He was one of the beings that the People truly respected and honoured and many of them, while not worshippers of Christianity, made a pilgrimage to the town and as such it had a rather large, if hidden, non-human community.

Harry had arrived in the town the night before by plane and had immediately crashed in the nearest hotel along with his entourage of Anya, Alexei and Morraine regardless of its not so five star status.

As was his custom, he awoke at dawn on the day of the treaty signing and prepared for the day with his normal morning activities and swiftly made his way down to the small breakfast bar dressed to the nines.

Afterward he sat on the front porch of the hotel and watch the city progressively come to life. Stores began to quietly open despite the slight chill in the air, the early morning workers walked swiftly to their place of employment and many were the people who passed him wearing symbols of the Christian faith.

Harry grunted to himself. The Dursley's had officially been Christian but did not really follow the commandments too well. Harry didn't really have a faith in any god.

Even less now that he was a Campione.

"Thinking deeply, my lord," a familiar voice spoke from his side.

"No more than usual, Anya," he responded, not bothering to turn around "Just wanting to take in the sights before I suffer the headaches that will be involved in meeting that moron,"

Anya had the temerity to giggle softly.

"What are you laughing about?" Harry said with a wicked smirk and raised eyebrow, "you will be right there beside me when we meet him."

Anya's giggling was swiftly replaced by a pale face filled with her and any other beautiful woman, meeting that man was equal to being roasted on hot coals. Alive.

Harry chuckled at her expression. It seemed that the reputation of the King of Swords was well known and many of the female gender dreaded meeting the fool.

As the treaty was being signed in Italy, at the insistence of the People, it was required to inform the one who claimed the territory, Campione Lord Salvatore Doni, of their movements to ensure that no hostilities broke out, especially at a crucial time such as this.

When the moron, as Harry called him aloud (and many others called him in safety of their minds), was informed he insisted that he be present at the signing so as to 'ensure the safety of my constituents from the dangers of foreign powers'.

Harry was pretty sure that the moron just asked his assistant to make sure he got there so he could fight the younger Campione, as Harry was quite sure that the idiot was unable to even spell half the words in the missive.

Either way, for whatever reason, he, the youngest Campione, would be meeting one of his peers for the first time and he had no desire to let an obviously tapioca brained swordsman think himself superior to him.

Especially in front of the People and Princess Alice.

Harry smiled at the thought of the beautiful woman. When they had first met, it was as a representative of the Witengamot attempting damage control on an incident within her domain. Despite that she had showed sympathy and kindness to him and aided him in his endeavour to remove himself from England and had offered a hand in friendship to him even if he was aligned to another association even if it was with her backing.

Over the first few months as a Campione she was able to send her ectoplasmic projection pretty much everyday and helped him to truly come to terms with his role as a Campione with the aid of Morraine and Alexei. This aid gradually became a firm friendship despite the distance between them. Secrets were shared and stories told that they would never tell another and, despite the age difference, were able to give each other advice or different points of view in regards to the problems they encountered in their lives.

Which is why, when he found out the reason for her projections and how frail she truly was, he immediately aided her by giving her a way to become healthy once more.

His [Golden Apples].

These were produced by his Authority, [Abundant Earth], at the cost of sealing it for a complete night and day and he could only produce one at a time despite what ever materials he used. They made the eater return to full health and temporarily gave them the vitality of a Campione due to them being apples of [Youth]. If it were a simple disease, then Alice would be healed immediately, but because it was her own immense power doing the damage she needed a constant supply of them to keep her body from deteriorating once more.

Thankfully she only needed them once a week to go about her normal business (but required them more often if she exercised a large amount of power) and Harry was more than willing to supply her with them.

Her gratitude to him for doing so was almost overwhelming and the friendship was cemented and then cast in diamond due to his actions. She would be able to live a normal life as a mage of her calibre could, she could run through the fields, see the world with her own two eyes and expect to live a longer life instead of dying before thirty-five.

The Witengamot, and especially the Goddodin family, were also immensely grateful and relations between them and the Assembly bordered on that of true allies because of this.

A missive from the Black Prince Alec had also given his sincere if sarcastic gratitude as, despite the political differences between his Royal Arsenal and the Witengamot, he still held the Princess in a somewhat friendly regard.

All in all, they were firm friends and would remain so for the rest of their days, no matter what happened.

And should anyone attempt to harm her...

He growled deeply for a moment, causing Anya to glance at him in worry, and the arms of the chair he sat in screeched in protest as he began to crush them.

The heavens would resound with screams of pain from those who did and their blood would make a river before he utterly erased their existence from the world.

'No one hurts her' he thought harshly, 'No one.'

A pale hand upon his shoulder roused him from his ire-filled thoughts and made him glance at Anya who had laid her hand upon him in concern. A concerned questioning look upon her regal features before he smiled slightly to indicate he was fine and caused her to relax.

The heavy thump of boots on floorboards accompanying the sharp click of heels had both looking towards the door of the small hotel as Alexei and Morraine walked out in full dress. A raised eyebrow from the young Campione was met with nod of a head indicating that both were ready to depart.

Both youngsters stood up and the group then departed on foot to the Basilica.

It was a rather short walk for the physically fit or normal magi, less than two kilometres, so they made it in less than twenty minutes even with a leisurely walk. The sights that met them when they arrived at the Basilica made them all draw a deep breath.

Its truly beautiful Romanesque and Gothic architecture and the clear autumn daylight striking of the white stone walls made for quite a sight in the lead up to the mid-morning meeting. It's famous rose window above the main doors seemed to look upon them like a benevolent father welcoming his children into his arms.

It made Harry feel truly...

"Oi! Seventh!" a jovial voice voice interrupted.

...annoyed

His eyebrows twitching in irritation, Harry turned a baleful glare onto the crass voice's owner.

Clad in a unbuttoned and open Hawaiian shirt and blue jeans with off-the-shelf Converse All Star shoes with a wide smile on his tanned face, his bright blue eyes gleaming with excitement as the sun's rays bounced off of his bleached blonde hair and Ray Ban sunglasses was Lord Salvatore Doni, Campione and King of Swords.

And Harry's current pain in the ass.

Behind the flamboyantly striding Campione was the hurrying figure of the Italian born Godslayer's adjutant, assistant and unfortunate friend, Andrea Rivera. His black hair and spectacled brown eyes along with his immaculate business suit giving him a professional air of exasperation as he followed in the Campione's footsteps.

His entourage quickly gave a bow to the Italian swordsman.

"Lord Salvatore," they greeted respectfully before rising once more.

Harry simply glared at the annoyance before him with a straight back, his short sword of diamond, Diamant, and his spear, Rubin, hidden from normal eyes with layered enchantments from several of the Assembly, near his hands and more than willing to be drawn at the beginning of any hostilities.

Kings did not bow to others unless forced.

Soon the two Campione were face to face. The Italian's height of over six feet causing Harry's rather impressive (for an eleven year old) five foot two inched frame to look up. The Italian's body was clearly defined and muscular in an athletic rather than body building sense and his six pack was impressive and caused many passing teenaged girls to eye him hungrily, not that he really noticed. In comparison, Harry's lean figure and immaculate suit gave the look of a young gentleman and also attracted more than few admiring eyes.

Doni them clapped his younger peer on the shoulder with a wide grin.

"Good to finally meet to you, Seventh. I've been wanting to see the so called 'child Campione' for quite a while."

Harry irritably shrugged off the callused hands of the fool.

"Please keep your hands to yourself Salvatore," he growled slightly, " I dislike strangers touching me."

Doni laughed with his hands crossed behind his head..

"We are hardly strangers, Seventh. We are peers, friends and brothers,"

Harry snorted irritably, "Even families need a break from each other at times,"

Doni chuckled, "You are quite the prickly one, aren't you."

Harry shrugged. "What can I say? Idiots irritate me."

Doni shook his head in amusement.

Harry then managed to rein in his irritation at the uncouth and irresponsible warrior to make introductions.

"Lord Salvatore, I present to you Alexei Artur Andropov, Morraine Bellatrix Duran and Anya Atalanta Duran. They are my escorts, entourage and witnesses for the signing of the Pallas Treaty."

A disinterested wave and glance from the swordsman was all that they earned from the introductions before he returned his attention to his younger 'brother' much to the pre-teen's ire.

"It is good that you came early." His eyes were once more alight with excitement, "this gives us time for a small match,"

As the Italian reached for the sword that materialised at his hip, his movements were halted by the stern voice of his assistant.

"Salvatore," Andrea warned, "we may be early but this hardly the time for match, especially in broad daylight in a popular tourist destination."

Harry massaged his temples with one hand before interrupting an argument between the two friends before it could begin.

"I am in agreement with Mr. Rivera. This is certainly neither the place nor the time for a match between Campione. If you are willing to wait we can spare somewhere remote after the signing ceremony. Is that agreeable?

Doni seemed to frown before, unbelievably, beginning to pout.

"Fine," the childish Campione grumbled, "but you had better bring your best to the challenge,"

"I can quite assure you, Lord Salvatore," Harry smirked, " I will bring nothing less."

"Good," grunted the now out of sorts Sienna native before he swiftly swung an arm around around the now flailing European Campione and began giving him a noogie on his braided hair, "otherwise I would be disappointed in my little brother," he ended grinning.

This was quickly changed to a grimace of agony as he let go of Harry and hunched over cradling his groin as a now viciously smiling Harry looked at him. His entourage and Andrea watching on with sweat drops at their behaviour falling down the backs of their heads.

Soft chimes of laughter filled the courtyard causing Harry to stiffen and whip his head towards the source that he knew well.

In a white sundress with a yellow parasol, strode Alice Louise Gododdin in her real body with a healthy flush in her cheeks and a soft and amused smile as she observed the antics of the two Campione.

"Alice!" Harry cried with glee as he moved swiftly towards his friend, completely ignoring the groans of pain and curses from the Italian swordsman.

"Harr-eeeeee!" the Princess began to answer before she was gripped around the waist by the slightly shorter male and lifted and twirled around as the air filled with his gleeful laughter, "Put me down!" she squealed slightly.

His laughter subsiding to chuckles, he did so but kept his arms wrapped around her.

"It is good to see you once more, Alice," he said with a wide smile, "the lead up to and organisation of the treaty has seen a great lack of free time for me to meet you. For that I am truly sorry."

Light green eyes merely smiled at the shorter of the pair.

"It is understandable, young lord." she said calmly, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes at the use of the title.

"Must you call me by title?" he groaned, "you are enough of a friend to forgo such things."

Putting on an innocent expression, her comments caused him to droop slightly in embarassment.

"But then where would I get the entertainment of seeing your puppy-like sulking face?"

As the two caught up, Salvatore was finally able to get his breath back and observe the interactions of the two. The kept close to each other and barely separated from the hug his 'little brother' had started. The smiles on their faces were open and genuine.

"They seem quite close," Doni murmured to his friend.

"Indeed," agreed Mr. Rivera, "It seems that despite them representing different Associations they have a close bond."

"Princess Alice," spoke up the regal woman in the Seventh's entourage- Morstain or something-, "was the one who introduced the young man to us when he first became Campione. She was an anchor that aided in his adjustment to what his life had become. He was also the one who was able aid in the Princess' recovery. They have been firm friends ever since."

"Truly," the Sixth Campione muttered, eying the interactions once more and smirked slightly before chuckling quietly.

Judging from how they acted now, once Seventh really hit puberty it would be _quite_ the show.

Pity he couldn't get tickets.

Bong!

The bells of the Basilica rang out drawing attention from all and sundry.

Bong, Bong, Bong.

Bong, Bong, Bong.

Bong, Bong, Bong.

Bong.

"Eleven already?" Harry questioned as he removed himself from Alice's embrace absently, " We'd better hurry to the Upper Church then."

Everyone seemed of the same mind as they all followed him through the main doors in the Basilica.

As he passed through the doors, Harry felt a gentle brush against his magic. He slowed for a moment frowning, but his instincts screamed no warning. Indeed, what he felt was like a father opening his arms in welcome to a long lost son. There was no feeling of threat, only protection.

Shrugging he kept walking into the holy halls.

Unseen to all, a figure in stained glass, surrounded by animals, against all possibility, raised his hand in benediction.

As a blessing upon a Campione.

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Through various means, the Mage Association Greenwich Assembly, with the aid of the People, had been able to appropriate the Upper Basilica for use of the ceremony. Mainly due to the People having a firm friendship with the Franciscan Order and allowing them to be present at the ceremony.

So when the two Campiones and their companions entered the nave it was to a large gathering of many different species in attendance. Centaurs chiefs, Naga rajas, Merpeople leaders floating around in large mobile water bubbles, Veela matrons, Vampire lords, Werewolf alphas. All of these and many more besides were there to witness this historic occasion.

The mumbling of the crowd slowly died down as Harry and his entourage, along with Princess Alice, separated from Doni's party and slowly made their way to the altar and its occupants.

Behind the altar stood the Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, more commonly known as the Franciscan Order. A devout Italian man of elderly years who smiled gently as Harry respectfully genuflected towards the altar before proceeding onwards up the short stairs.

Just because he was a Godslayer and somewhat of an atheist, doesn't mean he wouldn't show respect for another's beliefs.

Beside the saintly man stood Director Silverclaw, his Victorian era suit standing out among those in attendance along with his somewhat short stature. His face calm and ever so slightly pleased, he had done a great deal of negotiating for both sides of the treaty and as such was considered an honoured and neutral party. Without his efforts the treaty may have ended up being a blood war instead in Harry's opinion.

Beside him were the Triad. A group of three beings that collectively represented the interests of the People in the negotiations and were leaders in their right among their people.

In soft and almost sheer red silk robes was a beautiful blonde woman with ice blue eyes. She was the Veela Matron, Zaria. Named for the Polish goddess of beauty, she truly exemplified that trait even without her Veela status. She was also one of the best, if not the best, on the battlefield among her kin. Her keen eyes pierced Harry like knife, dissecting his every movement to see if he was a threat before she gave a small nod which he returned.

The next of the Triad was a grizzled old centaur that leant slightly heavily upon a large ash staff. His snowy white hair long enough to meet his human parts waist, brushing along his still rock hard abdomen. His milky eyes stared sightlessly at the young Campione. The centaur's name was Chiron, named for the greatest centaur to have ever lived. He earned this name after many years of battle and wise judgements. His was reputed to be the greatest seer amongst the herds and his milky eyes were said to be stars themselves.

The last of them had her lower half coiled beneath her and her bright sapphire scaled skin glittered in the sunlight that fell into the Nave. She was a Naga from India and was arguably their stongest healer and water mage. Her lidless reptilian eyes stared at him until she nodded in acknowledgement in unison with himself. Her voluptuous body clad in the finest silk and her raven black silky hair gave her an entrancing visage as she smirked slightly at him. Her name was Lakshmi, for the Hindu goddess of wealth and beauty. An appropriate name for a Queen amongst the naga.

As Harry took his place beside them, his companions were swiftly going through the various arrangements with Silverclaw and the Minister in regards to the ceremony.

"It is good that you are here, young King," the remarkably soft voice of Chiron spoke as he leaned slightly towards the boy a slight smile of his weathered but unlined face, "I was getting worried that you would be held up by the King of Swords,"

"I almost was," Harry grimaced, "thankfully I managed to get him to postpone the inevitable match until after the signing."

A hissing laugh from Lakshmi caused him to mockingly glare at her until she held her hands up in false surrender.

"Sorry, kiddo" the naga spoke jovially, "but you have to admit that this was going to happen sooner or later. You couldn't just stay in Switzerland all the time."

"True," he grunted, "I just wish it was later though."

"It was long overdue in my opinion, your majesty," commented the clinical voice of Zaria.

"Probably," he acknowledged with a sigh, "I honestly wish it wasn't Salvatore that I met first though. Even Voban would be more palatable to me than that moron. And he would probably try to kill me on sight."

A slight uncontrolled shiver went down the spine of the Veela Matron. She knew well enough what type of man the Devil of Balkan was and was far from eager to meet him a second time.

All thoughts on other matters were driven out as the Minister stood behind the lectern and held up his hands for silence that was swiftly given.

"Greetings to you all," the Minister intoned, "and I hope to find you all in good health."

The Minister them looked around at the assembled with a slightly marveled expression.

"This day is truly one of the most extraordinary days of my life. Before me are a great many people from very different walks of life. Some that have enmity for each other are seated beside one another and have not spoken a single cruel word or made a harmful gesture.

All this in the name of peace.

Peace between the People and that of humans. Something that even one such as I had never dared hope that he would witness. But now I will."

The Minister gestured for Harry to come forward. As he did so the Minister continued his speech.

"In all honesty this could not have come about without this young man and his great heart. I would please ask that you listen to this young man's words."

The Minister calmly stepped back from the lectern and took his seat. Leaving only a preteen to address the various beings in attendance.

Harry gulped inaudibly and stood before the audience before he stiffened his resolve and began to speak.

"Over the years, decades and centuries, man has met man. Ideals have clashed, thoughts have been shared.

And blood has been spilled.

When man met the People it was the same. More blood was spilled.

Many are those among men that say 'we are superior. we have the right to rule over you for you are beasts.'

They are wrong.

In every part of ourselves there is that little piece of us that sees the good in all beings. Men often just ignore it out of fear and jealousy and demonise the ones they see.

But some did listen. Some did hear that voice saying what you truly and paid heed to it.

These are the people who are here this day. Those who value peace over war. Friendship over blood.

And truth and strength over fear and lies.

Thus armed with truth we gather this day to see peace between of peoples and hope that this will spread."

His words echoed in the Nave and his voice was filled with sincerity and belief. A charisma of a true King.

"This will be but a small step in the right direction," he continued, "eventually, I dream that this treaty will not be necessary and that both sides of this treaty will instinctively treat the the other as though they were truly equal and friends.

But that is the future. The now is where we are and what is of most concern to us. Now is the time to come together, learn from one another, support one another. Let your thoughts relax and your hands lift from their weapons and know that none in this room will harm another."

Without another word, Harry gestured to the side and the great scroll that had rested on the altar sprung up to hang in mid-air and swiftly rolled itself to the end where signatures were waiting to be applied.

Solemnly, Harry walked to the scroll as behind he heard the Minister chant out a hymn that filled the Nave. Taking the proffered quill and ink pot from Silverclaw, he neatly signed his name upon the parchment and laid the signet ring he wore into the circle of wax below it. It glowed a bright green and stayed so, indicating the working of the spells laid upon the parchment.

This was quietly repeated by the Triad without any trouble and were followed by the witnesses Princess Alice, Director Silverclaw and lastly the Minister, who had finished his hymn to do so.

Upon the saintly man placing his signet ring into the wax, the entire scroll rose a few more feet of the ground and glowed a bright gold, which caused many to look away, before it split into seven pieces, or rather copied itself, which then floated into the arms of the signatories and returned to its normal state.

The Nave was silent before a lone vampire began to softly clap. Soon it was joined by another and another until the halls shook with the force of clapping in celebration.

The signatories all made a slight bow to the attending observers and began to make their way down the short steps leading up to the altar.

Harry had chosen to descend with Alice beside him when he felt it. The hairs on the back of his neck shot up and alarm bells blared within his mind. He stiffened as his eyes frantically flicked around for the source. He idly noted that Salvatore had reacted at the same time.

A surprised widening of the old centaur's milky eyes as they seemed to look towards the base of the short stairs leading from the altar was all the confirmation he needed to react.

"Ware!" he called as he grasped Alice around the waist with one hand and leapt backward, the others heeding his voice and actions in time to avoid what happened next.

The floor buckled upward violently as seven humanoid figures exploded from the floor creating a dust cloud which obscured them. Harry swiftly brought out Diamant and stood in front of Alice, as if to protect her. Salvatore had also drawn a blade and was making his way through the retreating crowd to the altar.

A white blur came toward Harry only to be met by a slash of diamond causing it to snarl and hop backward. The creature was easily seven feet tall and solidly built but did not have any masculine or feminine shape to it. Maggots white skin with black eyes and a bull horned head glared at him before it shifted its eyes to the woman behind him. Harry spine chilled and his blood burned at the expression of hunger the beast gave upon looking at Alice. The scepter in its hand was made of lapis lazuli and seemed to give off a blackened aura.

It barked a command to its associates and they all blurred at blinding speed towards him and Alice.

Some were stopped though.

Salvatore managed to sprint forward and slam into two of them sending them flying and chased them down with his sword drawn and arm turned to metal.

Chiron calmly reached out with his staff from where he was beside the slightly apprehensive Minister and practically clotheslined the beast and drawing its attention.

Zaria reverted to her Veela form and slammed a fistful of [Passion Flames] into another's face from which it snarled lightly and began to fight her in close quarters combat.  
Lakshmi glowed a bright sapphire before an immense jet of water hammered into one of them and mashed it against a pillar. It swiftly shook off the pain and charged the Naga ruler.

Another, wielding a mace, was being triple teamed by a combination of Anya's annoying archery, Morraine's pin point strikes of percussive force with [Star Burst] and Alexei's personal spell, [Golem], which allowed for his form to be reinforced in strength and stamina to large levels as long as he was in contact with the ground.

The last, and leader judging by the both the scepter and its commanding air, attacked him once more. Scepter and sword met again and again in great crashes as the cries of the attending crowd began to fade as they huddled near the walls, knowing that only the strongest of them could stand a chance of these [Divine] beings.

Chiron was easily trading blows of his staff with the large claws of the beast. His sightless eyes locked with his opponent and avoiding all the strikes from the claws. Physical attacks were not working, it kept healing from the blunt force of the ashen staff. A hardened look crossed his features as he locked his staff with the claws and leaned forward putting pressure on the beast. His equine weight lending him an advantage. The staff suddenly glowed bright silver, causing the beast to flinch before the lock was suddenly broken making the beast stumble forward before it was rewarded with a swipe to its face from a staff glowing with [Starfire]. It let out a piercing streak as it was flung backward and burst into silver flames momentarily before it turned to ash.

Chiron leaned on his staff, panting in exhaustion. The spell needed he used was extremely powerful but took a heavy toll on the body and his aged form was far from in its prime. His milky eyes wandered to Zaria as she used her bird-like body to dart around her beast, raking her claws or talons, coated with [Passion Fire], along its flanks. It frantically attempted to hit her but she was too fast and was killing it by inches. A quick feint by her made an opening over its heart area and she pounced on it. Her right hand burst into a concentrated form of the fire before she launched a spear hand that ripped right through its chest.

"Filth." she hissed at the transfixed enemy as it squirmed and struggled, "Begone!"

Her entire arm burst into a roaring bar of azure flame.

It turned to ash in short order.

Zaria's Veela form began to sway only to be caught by Chiron and the Minister. Her slowly reverting face gave an exhausted tight smile to them both in gratitude, even as she cradled her now severely burned arm, before she followed their gazes to the Naga Queen.

Lakshmi was not having the best of times with the enemy. It was faster than she was and the axe it wielded was frighteningly sharp.

Not to mention her water spells did little to it.

Whenever her crushing watery spells hit it, it simply got back up as fast as possible and came at her again. Blunt force trauma with the use of water was her preferred method of attacking and it was almost useless against the enemy save in getting some distance from it.

An echoing BOOM! drew the her current opponent's and her attention to where Doni had managed to crush his opponents with his blade. The various pulped pieces that flew began turning to dust as she dragged her attention back to her now frozen opponent.

'If external damage doesn't work,' she thought, 'let's try internal.'

A large ball of water shot from her hands towards the beast's slackened jaws and disappeared between them. The beast began to choke and seem to drown on dry land and flailed about and continually tried to cough the water up.

'Explode' she thought.

The beast suddenly froze for a moment before it fell to the floor on its back and writhed frantically. Its stomach began to bloat obscenely to the point it looked like a beach ball. Some after a wet Sploosh! echoed the through the Nave as its belly finally reached its limits. Flesh rained around her for a moment before more golden dust was produced.

The Naga Queen grinned savagely at the defeat of her enemy for a moment, even as her body trembled in exhaustion from the immense amount of magic she used, before her eyes sought out the rest of her companions.

Harry was becoming... annoyed.

This maggot like being had interrupted an important occasion, destroyed a portion of an absolutely beautiful peace of architecture and then attacked him.

But that was small potatoes compared to what it did then.

It _dared_ to stare _lecherously_ at Alice. His most precious friend. His personal confidante.

Then it went so far as to _attempt to attack her!_

Yes, it was safe to say that Harry was far from in a good mood.

His magically enhanced strength and speed were able to keep up with the beast's swift and strong attacks. However, the scepter it used emitted a darkness that had him wary. Whenever it clashed with Diamant, his sword seemed to get slightly lighter. It was barely noticeable to most but Harry was a competent enough swordsman to feel something happening. A brief glance at his blade after he managed to send it stumbling backwards after a weapon lock revealed his answer.

His blade was eroding.

By some freakish sorcery, the black mist was slowly eroding his sword. He saw clear chips in the sword which was barely possible. Hit thought leant towards the mist possibly being a form of temporal acceleration. In which case his sword was _aged_.

He frowned for a moment as he once more clashed weapons with the monster before him, always keeping his body between the mongrel, and his friend. He was honestly lucky that he used an enchanted diamond blade. If it was able to erode diamond with brief clashes then a metal blade would probably be about as effective as paper and he really didn't want to think about its effect on flesh.

Time to step things up then.

Another weapon lock and this time her charged his body to his limits with magic before he shoved.

The surprised beast was launched backward and rolled and tumbled backward across the floor into open space.

Perfect.

Harry extended his hand towards the dazed beast with his palm showing.

**"Flame the devours, enter this world, consume, destroy, kill."**

With these words, to the observers, the world _burned_.

A roiling mass of flame gathered into his hand before it was shot forward in a stream.

With the leading abomination as its target.

Too late did the horned being sense the flame approaching. In a last effort to save its existence, it rose the sceptre before it and black mist fought roiling flames.

Momentarily.

The scepter was vastly outmatched by the flame and it was swiftly consumed along with its weilder.

The leader's dying shrieks were echoed by the ones of its compatriot that was destroyed by the combined might off Alexei, Morraine and Anya.

Harry kept the flames focused for a moment more before he closed his hand into a fist, ending the use of the Authority.

The only remains were a charred spot on the floor of the basilica.

The room was quiet for a time as Harry looked around him and asked the question on many of the People's minds.

"What were these things?"

Inside the depths of his mind, as he gently reached behind himself to grasp the delicate hand of his friend, he asked himself a more important question.

'And why were they after Alice?'

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Hope you all like it folks. PPlease review.


	9. Chapter 8

The Wild Campione

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Campione

Hey folks,  
Just to clear up some issues that were brought up, I will be posting a chapter every 7 - 10 days so I have the chance to produce a good quality chapter with few errors and of a decent length. If you have problems with that, I will feed your complaints to [Molten Core].

Secondly, to Nameless, the People are a collective group of beings that are not human but are more closely tied to the earthly laws than Heretic Gods and Divine Beasts who are more closely linked to beliefs and dreams. The People in the treaty are made up of the entire population worldwide so it would be difficult to have an Elder of each representing them in the committee. Too many cooks and all that. Furthermore, the Triad are not the leaders of the People but rather the beings who were chosen by the rest of the People to be empowered to negotiate a treaty with the Greenwich Assembly due to their reputations amongst the entirety of the People. The treaty merely makes an avenue for the GA to deal with a community of People whilst out in the world doing missions and gain aid in the form escorts, guides, lodging etc. There are other things but that is the gist. When it comes down to the representation of the People on the GA, well thats a bit of an issue as when the GA makes decisions, any People communities affected must be consulted but, in the broad sense, the People will rely on Harry's judgements and ability to represent them.

Also Wargamer08 is close to sending me the Authority he has thought of so look out for a new antagonist after the current arc.

Just to clarify, no campione was able to obtain an Authority because these were mere manifestations of another's power.

Now on with the show.

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The Great Lady brooded upon her throne in the darkness.

She had sent her [Demons of the Underworld] to collect the White Princess. It should have been easy. Grab a sickly girl when she is alone at her abode and return to the Great Land. Not that hard.

Except the girl wasn't sickly. She wasn't alone. She wasn't at her home.

Instead she was hail and lively. She was in the middle of a Basilica in Italy. She was surrounded by beings and mages.

And was standing next to a Campione.

The Mother growled to herself. All her plans, so carefully concealed from the eyes of others, were now attracting attention because a last minute mistake. She was far from happy.

Animalistic snorting behind her caused her to grimace before causally backhanding the snout of the animal surprisingly sending it flying into the cavern walls with a crash and a roar of pain.

"Don't interrupt my thoughts, Consort," she snarled, "I have other things to think of at this time."

The roars died down to quiet snuffling immediately.

The Goddess nodded in satisfaction before returning to her musings.

She had made a mistake, being too eager to obtain the prize, and had suffered for it. Her demons would not return into being for another three days and her adversaries would now take precautions in protecting her target. Not to mention The Goddess may have drawn the ire of a Campione if what she viewed through her demon's eyes was any indication.

And possibly the worst of the lot.

The 'child Campione'. The one who became a Godslayer before he was a decade old. The warrior who had faced four Heretic Gods within the time of his rule.

One who was rumoured to be particularly close to the White Brat.

She had thought that was just that, a rumour. Now she knew better.

The Great Mother reclined on her blue and gold throne.

She would just have to do better next time.

Soon as well, due to the time limit.

To free a young and handsome man from the chains that bound him and, perhaps, gain his favour. As an equal rather than being forced to submit to the Plague One or the Hunter.

At least, that is what the voice said.

Far away, an uncountable number of blue flaming eyes narrowed in satisfaction and glee.

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"Anyone want to take a guess at what our dearly departed friends were or what they wanted with Miss Alice?" a sarcastic yet concerned voice spoke, addressing the table at large.

After the attack at the signing ceremony, the mood of People and the rest of those present not quite as joyous as one would have hoped, various concerned parties had decided to meet up at a nearby restaurant with a private function room.

This included both Campione.

Harry frowned slightly at the question, "I am unsure of the exact identity of those who attacked or why they attempted to either bring harm to or abduct Alice but, rest assured, I will find out and I will make my views on such antics quite clear."

Many of those there felt the air fill with suppressed rage as the young King declared his intentions. They also shuddered at the power behind the young man's words and had no desire to stand between the boy and his prey. To do so, after he had all but declared Alice under his protection, was to invite oneself to an ass kicking of major proportions.

The Princess, who was sitting beside him, heedless of the rage that was only beginning to surface, gently reached out and rubbed his callused hand with her own soft one. The air of danger slowly ebbed back to normal as the Campione was comforted by the young lady.

Salvatore barked a laugh, "We will have to find them first before we can beat the seven shades of crap out of them."

Harry raised a eyebrow, "We?"

"You didn't expect me to stay out of this, surely?" the Italian swordsman chuckled, taking a sip of the red wine from his goblet, "they attacked someone on my turf, while under my nominal protection. I can't let that slide even if I disliked the person who was attacked, and I am far from disliking your presence, Princess." Doni said teasingly, causing Alice to merely look at him in annoyance.

"That can be discussed another time," interrupted the old centaur, Chiron, "Let's have a look at the situation. Seven beings attacked holy ground, they came from the ground, they were after the Princess. For what reason would they do so?"

The Veela Matron, Zaria, snorted elegantly, a look of disdain over her face, making her thoughts of the situation clear, "Hime-mikos, particularly powerful ones, are a great source of potential power, if one is able to siphon it off by sacrifice or some other means. Like Voban did a few years back before Lord Salvatore interrupted it."

Everyone, except the two Campione, felt their spines chill slightly at the thought of the cruel Campione. He was more of a refined beast than a human being in their eyes. An alpha wolf stalking its prey before crushing it in his jaws.

Lakshmi hissed in annoyance, "I don't know about all of you but I have no desire to see what a Deity of any stripe would want with the little lady."

"On that we are in agreement," Harry growled deeply before turning to the subject of their discussion and spoke softly, his eyes showing care and worry, "What are your thoughts, Alice?"

Alice Gododdin, the Princess of the Witengamot, Highest-Ranked Witch of the Heavens, looked around at those assembled at the table. Their faces showed sincere concern, something she was not used to seeing amongst the two-faced politicians in her Magus Association, and worry. This little gathering of people, minus a few like Lord Salvatore and Mr. Rivera, had all become friends, in some small way, after she began aiding Lord Harry in the negotiations as an attempt to recompense the extraordinary young man's aid with his [Golden Apples].

Her talks with a laughing Lakshmi about boys which had left her blushing and feeling like an unexperienced little sister to the naga, intense chess matches with the implacable Zaria, listening to old tales spun by the old centaur, even idly gossiping with Anya. These and more were made possible by the gentle bo- 'no,' she corrected herself, 'young man' - who now held her hand in his.

And now someone wanted to take her away from that.

She shivered slightly. If she was taken away from that, it would be better if she were dead rather than return to a sickly body and life after having just truly been able to taste the wonders of life.

"I believe," she spoke carefully, looking deeply into dark green orbs that burned an inner fire, something she had seen when she first met Harry, "that it would be prudent to identify and hunt down those that have done this. It is obvious that they wanted me for a reason and, by the same coin, will not stop at just one attempt. Forearmed and forewarned is the best in this situation."

A series of nods came from around the table, agreeing with her statement.

"Let us examine our adversaries then," spoke Morraine as she muttered a brief [Image] spell.

A small flock of light balls slowly gathered in the centre of the table and began to shift into the bestial form of the enemy. Its glaring face, even from an illusion, sent a slight chill down a few spines.

"Hmmm," rumbled Chiron, his milky eyes, despite being physically blind, still able to clearly See the image, "It is not something I recognize off hand but it is unique enough that we should be able to identify it with some time."

"Da," Alexei agreed with a firm nod, "With its unique shape, one should be able find out its identity."

"Androgynous," murmured Zaria, her eyes, hawk-like in their intensity, fixed on the image before, "came from the earth."

"Their energy," spoke up Salvatore, his face focused, "also felt dark, powerful and strangely empty."

"Death-like maybe?" questioned the naga.

"A good description," Doni concurred.

"That," commented Silverclaw, sitting up straight in his seat, "isn't all. The few that used weapons, wielded ones made of lapis lazuli."

"That's a bit dumb, don't you think?" snorted Anya with contempt. "After all, lapis lazuli is pretty much rough and colourful sandstone. It is not of any use in metal or weapon manufacture."

"Dumb or not, they still packed quite a bit of power," the goblin admonished, " just remember, when magic is added into the equation, even the smallest blade of grass can become more than an equal to a well forged blade."

The rest of the table all nodded firmly in agreement. Many of the situations that they had found themselves in came about due to a seemingly innocuous item in truth being a weapon or object of tremendous power and, more often than not, evil.

"It seems then," began Salvatore's companion, "that our current adversary has links with lapis lazuli, earth and death. Definitely a Earth Deity of some variety then."

Doni grunted an affirmative.

"Lapis lazuli," spoke Harry, his eyes distant and brow furrowed, seemingly grasping for something in his mind, "was mainly found in the old empires of Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, also known as the place where Sumer and Babylon resided."

His eyes widened suddenly, as a penny mentally dropped.

"The Dread Queen," he whispered, "Lady of Irkalla. Ereshkigal."

A collective breath rushed around the table as Harry continued on. Even when a now slightly pale Alice grasped his hand firmly once more.

"A Death Goddess. One of Earth. Abducted from the home of the Igigi, the younger Sumerian gods, by the first dragon, Kur, and taken down to rule the Great Below, Irkalla, which was surrounded by seven walls of lapis lazuli. At one point, her sister, Inanna or Ishtar, sought to take the throne of Irkalla, only to be killed and hung upon a hook. This made life and procreation stop in the world above. Desperate, Anu, the sky god, sent down one of Inanna's handmaidens along with beings created from the dirt beneath his fingernails, the Gallu, androgynous," ,here he stressed the word, "beings that neither ate, slept or drank, described as 'demons like raging bulls'. Horned, half-beast and lurking in the darkness. There were said to have been seven in total."

Harry peered around at everyone, their eyes were slightly widened and a sense of unease floated amongst them.

"I think we have identified the enemy." he said dryly.

Chiron gave a full-bodied shudder of fear as he processed the theory given by the young King. Death deities, of any stripe, were some of the most dangerous for a Campione or any other to face. This was because that martial prowess was rendered irrelevant for the most part against an enemy that could simply kill with a flex of will or a touch, depending on the legend. It all came down to matching power for power against an embodiment of Death itself. A feat that is almost impossible.

"That is only a theory." a feeble voiced Anya opined, a quiet thrill of fear in her tone.

"It is an accurate one." Harry retorted harshly, his face now in a rictus of anger as he glared at the illusion. The life-like image seemed to flinch and draw away from the once more angered Campione.

"A decision then needs to be made," spoke up the King's Butler, Andrea Rivera, "we have tentatively identified our adversary, if not their desired final goal. So now we must decide how to counter them and safeguard our own."

"I can look after myself well enough, Mr. Rivera." Alice spoke stiffly, "I have no need to be safeguarded. I am no stranger to the battlefield and, while my offensive abilities are somewhat limited, my defences are arguably some of the strongest, if not the strongest, seen in any hime-miko or witch. Ever. Period."

She looked harshly around at those assembled, her anger at being treated as a helpless babe by many of them (except for Harry) plain to see and caused many of them to shift uncomfortably.

While she would take being defended or protected, being metaphorically wrapped in swaddling cloth rankled her pride.

'I sealed [King Arthur Pendragon] for Heaven's sake,' she growled mentally as she fiddled with a large ornate emerald pendant that hung from her neck on a deceptively delicate silver chain, 'I will admit I am no true warrior, but I am no shirking violet either.'

Harry kept his hand folded in the angry teen-seeming woman's own as she snapped out her annoyance. While he honestly wanted nothing more than wrap his friend in cotton wool and hide her away, and as a Campione he could order that done, he would not step on the desires and pride of the woman who had granted him her friendship.

Not to mention he wasn't stupid enough to draw a woman's ire. That way lay only an endless pain.

The Hime-miko took up her rant once more as the majority of the room seemed to squirm slightly in their places.

"I am no fool. I know I have no chance of defeating such a powerful and ancient deity, and I am not going to try, but, if it came down to it, I am strong enough to be able to delay her advance and manage to escape." here she scowled tightly, "The fact that some of you seem to dismiss me as nothing more than a doll in strength and wit makes me wonder at the state of your own minds. Tell me, has grey matter begun leaking from your ears in the morning or did you actually have any in the first place?" she finished acidly.

A ringing silence filled the function room. No one was willing to breach it and have the ire of Highest-ranked Witch of the Heavens focused upon them.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHaha," the Italian Campione gleefully roared.

Well, for the most part, anyway.

"I like you, woman," the Italian sword user grinned, "you have a fire in you. Its a pity you weren't born Italian, you would make a new standard for us to follow with your passion."

Alice's frosty gaze at the remark only made him grin wider.

"I was not suggesting that you were helpless, Miss Gododdin," a slightly fearful Andrea backtracked, "but even you must understand that circumstances have changed and you need to take precautions in order to prevent our adversary from obtaining their goal - you."

"He makes sense," Harry said calmly, attempting to soothe his friend, "they obviously want you for something. I have no desire to see what it is or what it would cost you." Harry then looked deep into the green eyes of the still slightly irate Princess, "I am willing to offer a place for you to stay at Magie Festung for the duration of this situation along with Lord Salvatore," he continued with a nod of invitation toward his peer, "even you must admit that, while your Association is good at cleaning up the aftermath of a magical disaster, they are ill-equipped to take on a high ranked Heretic Deity such as Ereshkigal. Even if Alec were to be there at the time, he cannot be at your side at all times despite your odd friendship with him."

"I," he said firmly, still staring into her beautiful eyes, "on the other hand, am far more willing to stand at your side, as your shield, for as long as takes. My duties at home are not heavy and can be put on hold for a time. You practically live there anyway with you [Projections]. I will not impinge on your freedoms or desires or what-have-you. I just want to be sure that my friend will be okay at the end of the day."

Harry watched as her eyes slowly became less irate and more accepting of what he was trying to get across. So, he went for the killing blow.

"Besides," he grinned slightly, "when you're there you can keep a closer eye on my, in your words, 'foolish' self and I get to see a beautiful woman everyday."

Alice's cheeks pinked slightly at the compliment given by the pre-teen before she sighed in resignation. Besides, she liked the company at Magie Festung better than the Witengamot, family excepted.

"Fine," she grumbled, "but I will have to tidy up some affairs in England first."

"No problem," answered Harry, "I will use my Authority to take us all to Magie Festung first and then you and I will pop over to the Witengamot afterward and get things sorted."

She nodded her assent at his plan.

Harry then turned to Salvatore, "It would seem that our match will have to be postponed until everything has settled. I still have an invitation with your name on it however."

Salvatore grinned lightly, "| wouldn't mind coming with you, especially if a fight will be involved."

Harry faced turned predatory and harsh.

"Considering this deity is after Lady Alice, I think a fight will be inevitable." he then turned his eyes to the rest of the room, "Keep an eye on things around and ears to the ground. If you have obtained any information on the enemy then contact me immediately, rain, hail or shine. If we have enough information and an area where she is, we can pre-empt her attacks and nip this in the bud before any casualties are taken."

A chorus of nods greeted Harry's last command.

Only time will tell how effective it would be.

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Hey folks. Ok sorry for the short chapter but work has been hell for the last week.

I have also received a few messages on the rather weak powers of the [Golden Apples]. I would point out that the reason that Apples are needed so often by Alice is because of her own immense power. Though, as said before, it is not primarily combat based, it is still far too powerful to be used by an ordinary human body without repercussions. If she wasn't as powerful then the Apples would last far longer.

Please Review.


	10. Chapter 9

The Wild Campione

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Campione

Hey folks,

First of all thanks for all of your reviews. They were both critical and encouraging and will ensure better quality work from myself because of it.

To Nameless, I say that real Politics of the Pallas Treaty and treatment of the People will not be delved in too heavily at this point. I am currently fiddling with an idea for my story that will involve this issue and one of the three great/ultimate antagonists I have planned for the story, so please keep your britches on. Also please suspend your desires for realistic politics as this is a story and world that contains magic. So some things are meant not to make sense.

A heads up for my fans, this chapter will not contain much action but will set the scene for everything to go to hell.

As a sidenote, please tell me what you think of me making a Ranma/Campione crossover. Considering the ridiculous situations with mythical creatures he encounters, I believe Ranma has potential and am very surprised that it hasn't been done yet. Particularly with Saffron and the Orochi with a little tweaking of the storyline, maybe even Mao-Mao Lin if he was buffed up appropriately. I can just see the collision of Luo Hao and Ranma now, two massive egos sharing the same space. Alas! Poor Landscape, I knew thee well.

Also, to WarGamer08, please contact me!

Now that the announcements are done, on with the show!

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It has been close to two weeks since the interrupted ceremony and the subsequent war council had taken place and Harry and the rest of his associates had finally gotten use to his guests.

After he had dropped off his party, along with his 'older brother' and his butler, at his residence he had then, as promised, quickly departed to England with Alice via his Authority so she could clear up some matters and inform her association and family of the situation she had landed herself in and the manner in which she decided to solve it.

Her decisions were far from well received.

They endlessly crowded around her attempting to stop her from leaving, the younger ones probably due to what she was wearing and her shapely body - hormonal idiots that they were - whilst the elder were disinclined to have one of their larger trump cards away from their sphere of influence.

All in all, the typical type of politicians, both young and old, that infested every other hall of power, magical or mundane. It had honestly made him want to either vomit in disgust or bust some heads in rage that his friend was their target.

Thankfully for the idiot's continued good health and much to his admiration, Alice was able to skilfully placate the Witengamot and ensure that she was able to accompany him back to the Headquarters. Her arguments of her staying here and drawing the ire of a very old and powerful Heretic Goddess of Death to the Association as a whole had been a major weapon in her arsenal to achieve her goals.

Though he liked to think that his glowering and increasingly hardened face had given her some aid.

Either way, it was within the period of three hours that Alice was packed, ready and had her affairs in order for at least the next three months with emergency and daily contacts with her subordinates arranged so she can fulfil what duties she could from long distance.

She was truly a dedicated individual in his opinion.

The last thing we did before we returned to Magie Festung was speak with her aging father.

For a man that was easily in his early eighties, Duke Franklin Goddodin was still an imposing specimen in Harry's opinion. Easily six foot three and with a sleekly muscled body that belied his age. His sharp blue eyes had practically dissected the young Campione through the still full locks of snow white hair that hung over them due to his slightly stooped posture. The old man's facial features were thickly lined with marks of frowns and laughter on his slightly tanned skin. To Harry he had given off the presence of an old lion, a step slower and not quite as strong as the beast was in his prime but far more experienced, knowledgable and intelligent and still easily able to knock down any young cub that started to get uppity. This was a man that had seen and done much his long life and was all the more for doing it. He would make an excellent ally or the worst of enemies.

When the situation was explained to the old warrior, along with their responses to it, he had been somewhat skeptical of the ability of the young Campione but had admitted that what plans they had put into place were both feasible and quite correct. His blunts words that the majority of the Witengamot 'couldn't fight a wet paper bag' had made his opinions on the rest of his peers more than clear.

When they had, at last, begun to leave, the Duke had asked for a quick word alone with him. The old man had quickly pulled him into a small alcove to speak.

His words then had Harry off kilter for the next couple of days in regards to his friend.

_"You're a good young man, Harry Potter," the old man had rumbled, his voice a heavy bass, "throughout your association with my daughter I have never seen her happier than when she has been with you nor sadder when she has not, save when her mother passed on. You brighten her day, respect her as an equal unlike many of the young rakes amongst us and care not a whit for her titles and power, only for herself as a person._

She is an intelligent young lady, much as you are an intelligent man, but you both seem to lack an understanding in one of the more vital aspects of humanity.

I ask, no beg, that you protect her so that you can both reach that understanding."

There was little Harry could say to a slightly teary eyed old man except 'yes, I will' despite his slight confusion in what he meant.

The pair had then left after a last wave goodbye.

When they had arrived once more at Magie Festung they were surprised to see it still in one piece, despite the reputation Salvatore had for destruction, and Harry was quick to get them settled in the guest wing with Salvatore and his butler having connecting rooms and his friend having one close to his to ensure that he was able to respond to her calls quickly.

The time since then was a learning experience for all involve. Salvatore had been told in no uncertain terms that what he broke would be replaced at his expense, making the Italian somewhat careful in his actions. That said he enjoyed being here and was quite happy with sparring with the Stals. Whilst none could come even remotely close to fighting him equally, they were still able to give him a workout individually and a very good challenge at a squad level, something he had yet to encounter and enjoyed learning from. Granted this was without using his Authorities.

His butler, on the other hand, fit in quite well and was quite happy to get a rest from his friends wild actions. He was generally seen with the rest of the Keepers in the library looking up what information they had acquired on various Heretic Deities, death goddesses in particular. Hopefully he, with aid from others, would be able to trace the various roles and guises that Ereshkigal had worn over the millennia.

Alice was fitting in the best of the three. Due to her [Projections] she was treated as an honorary for quite some time before the current crisis had come to light so having her physically in attendance was hardly worth noting. Most of her days were taken up with either helping Andrea, talking with and helping the little Hime-Miko Samantha or, more recently, acting as both a sounding board and an advisor to young Harry in regards to a recent development in his magical studies.

A large and detailed tome of instruction on [Serpent Magic].

Much to his shock, Lakshmi had presented the priceless tome, from the highly guarded vaults of the hoarding Naga no less, to him before he and his party had left Italy. When asked why she would give it to him then, freely, despite him searching pretty much everywhere in the human magical world for even a small bit of anything referencing the singular magic and offering a small fortune for them, her answer was both cryptic and unhelpful.

'_Times change, young Campione. Any serpent can tell you that.'_

Sometimes he found the People to be some of the most annoying beings in existence and was hard pressed not to develop a headache from dealing with some of the more isolated tribes existing. They really didn't think in a logical human manner.

In either case, the tome he now had allowed him to finally progress further his limited grasp on the magic.

When he first opened it, he was surprised to find that its script was not of any of those used in the Hindi nations like Gupta, Brahmi or Devanagari but rather a more flowing and circular script that none the less was still able to be read by him. A glance from Alice was all she needed to say that she had no idea either.

Further inspection showed that the tome was written in western form. Meaning it was read like any other western book; left to right and top to bottom. It was also written on some form of parchment, although the pages were not made from any leather or hide he had seen. In fact, it almost seemed that what light there was to read it by was almost mirrored off of it like it was made of shiny metal or polished glass. Something he pondered on when he had some free time.

Still it was very informative. It also detailed the reason [Serpent Magic] was used without divine aid. It all stemmed from the deity that had been helped and had given the gift of Parseltongue. In this case it was [Ouroborous]. The First Serpent, the One Who Is Both Beginning and End and Yet Neither. According to legend, [Ouroborous] was the first being to exist. It had no partner nor offspring. It continuously grew and as it did so it fed off of its own tail. A common creed that involved its image in Alchemy was 'One is All; All is One'. This was interpreted as a being that was self sufficient thus making those gifted with Parseltongue able to directly affect the world with their power, limited as it was by either the amount of it they had or attributes that were inherent to it, and thus [Serpent Magic] was born.

To Harry it somehow seemed that Parseltongue was a weakened form of Authority which would explain why it was able to trump Wizard Magic.

After explaining the origins of the ability, the book then got down to the real deal. The feats that could be performed by a practitioner of art and, more importantly, how they did it. Shapeshifting, Healing, Barrier Crafting/Warding, Cursing, Divination and multitude of other types of spells were available, including some theoretical ones that were so powerful that no practitioner had ever been able to perform them and had Harry a little leery of even attempting unless his balls were to the wall. And all of them were contained in this one precious book.

Needless to say, Harry was a very happy mage.

Further reading allowed Harry to truly 'walk the Coiled Path' as the tome referred to practicing [Serpent Magic]. The most important part of using the magic was the state of mind. The book told Harry and Alice that 'one must first dwell in a serpent's skin in order to become one'. Essentially this meant he had to think like a snake in order to truly use the magic.

Decisiveness. A snake does not strike without reason but when it does so it is swift and with conviction but without regret, hesitation, mercy or doubt.

Acceptance. A serpent understands that some things cannot be prevented or averted nor can they be undone. What is done, is done and now it is time to move forward.

Stillness. A serpent can wait for days or weeks on end for prey to come into it's reach before it strikes, once, perfectly. One must be patient in all things and attempt to analyse all possible paths without being guided, with bias, by the heart in order to find the best possible solution.

It was the mindset of a hunter, a predator. An assassin.

It made Harry somewhat leery of the magic. It scared him that he may just left his friends die in order to achieve an end if he used this mindset enough. That was something he would never want.

The tome also warned him of using such magic while filled with fear or other negative emotions. As he had learned before, through the legend of Orochimaru, snakes were symbols of dualism. Good and Evil. Rebirth and Destruction. Endings and Beginnings. If his mind slipped from the snake mindset, the balance of positive and negative, whilst his magic was in use, the barriers between his conscious thoughts and his emotional desires would begin to erode, making him, over time, increasingly ruled by his wants and desires and would destroy all in his path that prevented him from doing so.

That had Harry keeping himself up at nights with worry.

Right now though, he was attempting to use what was called the [Coiled Light], a form of illusion similar to [Image], on a caged rat whilst his friend watched on as a large iridescent and slightly transparent cobra glided towards the slightly confused and fearful rodent.

"Somehow," said Alice as she sat at a small coffee table, gently sipping a delightful herbal tea with an amused smile as her friend attempted to scare the little animal with something that its animal senses said was not real, "I don't think the spell is quite up to standard."

The illusionary snake abruptly vanished as the young Campione finally huffed in defeat and annoyance whilst glowering slightly at the now exceedingly confused rat.

"It isn't," he growled as he joined the Princess at the small table, slumping heavily into the comfortable seat, "The illusion has the potential to trick all of the physical senses into believing that the illusion was real. I just have to keep all the details in mind as I do it though so vast and complex illusions are not feasible. The tome mentioned that the users of this spell generally focused on a small number of forms and tried to make sure they had all the variables figured out. Obviously I haven't done so."

"I can understand what you mean," she commented with a cute frown of her brow, "though I truly wonder why you would use this spell then. It seems rather useless until you can get to master's level."

"One of the spells I desire to learn," he replied with a wry grimace, "requires a firm grounding in this spell before I can even attempt it."

"Babysteps?" she asked cryptically.

"Babysteps." he grunted in confirmation. And they truly were. WIthout the grounding in this spell, if he attempted the other, despite his Campione status, in the wrong situation, he may just turn his mental state into a frappe'.

And truly insane Campione's were not something anyone would want to deal with. Or could.

A knock on the door of the his study chambers interrupted his musings.

"Come," he called as he reached for a cup that Alice had poured for him.

Much to his chagrin a grinning Italian Campione walked in, a large flyer in hand before he paused taking in position of the two before him.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" the Italian spoke with a wicked grin.

"Nothing of any true importance," Harry grumbled, missing the slight reddening of Alice's cheeks at what the rude man implied, "what do you want?"

"Not much," the Campione said carelessly as he idly folded away the flyer, "can't I check on my little brother?"

"Small I may be, Doni" Harry growled in annoyance, "but I am neither your brother, nor am I stupid. I reiterate, what do you want?"

The Campione's face smoothed out and gained a serious mein that had the green eyed boy's hackles standing on end. If the Idiot was serious then something was going down.

Doni dragged a chair before him and straddled it whilst looking at them.

"Just came to let you know that the Keepers managed to get off the horn with a few off their contacts. Apparently our Lady of Death has been pretty busy since we beat off her goons at the church."

Harry carefully placed down his cup as Alice did the same. He had a feeling he wouldn't want anything breakable in his hands when he heard what was said.

"Dare I ask?" he asked, his voice cold and calm like the surface of a deep lake, concealing what lay beneath.

Doni dragged his hand through his hair, his face solemn, "It is only speculation but there are strong indications that something depopulated a few remote villages in various countries within Europe over the past week. The only reason they knew about it is because they tried to check in with the contacts in one of the villages only for it not to be answered. A quick investigation showed that every man, woman and child seems to have up and vanished without a trace except for a lingering presence of power similar to what was sensed in the church according to the teams sent and a few signs of futile struggle but no blood was shed."

Harry's hands clenched as he heard what had happened and his thoughts raged.

"Are they sure it was the goddess?" Alice questioned, her face tight and filled with sorrow. Her thoughts on this deity's actions clear upon her visage.

"Not directly," Doni answered, his face also tight, "the signature was almost identical to that of the church but on a larger scale. The common consensus was that she summoned more of those Gallu. A lot more."

CRACK!

The non-residents of Magie Festung turned toward the sound of rending wood as Harry smashed the arm of the chair, his face twisted in anger and hate. The villages had no defence against the woman and targeted them for whatever reason. None of which boded well.

And he could do nothing. He did nothing. And worst of all, they didn't know why the bitch did this.

"Is there any pieces of good news?" he inquired, his harsh voice mirroring his inner turmoil.

"Only one," Doni admitted as his face now took on a feral cast, "due to the positioning of the villages, mainly small villages along the coast of the British Isles and the adjacent mainland, they have narrowed down where she could be hiding."

"Good," Harry snarled, "as soon as we get an accurate location we can set off and hunt her down." Harry looked into his fellow Campione's eyes, "I trust you are willing to come along on this bloody hunt?"

"More than." Doni answered firmly. Irresponsible he may be but wouldn't, presumably, take people's lives on that scale without a damn good reason.

Harry grunted in acceptance before a quiet cough from Alice turned both Godslayer's attention to her.

"As much as I would like to see the Goddess dead so I can resume my normal life," she said dryly, "perhaps it would be beneficial to determine the reasons for her to...obtain so many lives."

Rational thought instead of desires for justice slowly began to make itself known to the two Campione. A Heretic Goddess had, possibly, taken a great many human lives for an unknown reason. That was something to wary of and jumping to conclusions may just prove fatal.

Harry stood up from his broken seat, his face set and shoulders firm, "I'll tell them to make it a priority to find those that were taken," he said to the intent Italian and the concerned Britannian woman, "If we are lucky, the bitch may have not hidden the life forces of the abducted and, hopefully, this whole nightmare can be put to an end. I'll also order everyone to be on the alert. If she has made a move such as this now, then she may just make another attempt to obtain you, Princess."

A concerned and protective gaze dragged over the young lady's form as if inspecting her for any injuries. Alice strangely felt and odd shiver over her body at his gaze. Odd, but not unpleasant.

"One can hope," drawled Doni, gaining a stern look from his juniour, "don't give me that look," Doni snapped irritably, "the sooner the bitch makes a move, the sooner this can end. As it is we both need more information to strike at her whilst she probably already knows where we are, what we are doing and can easily craft a half decent plan to attack this place. It may be strong against normal and magical attacks but against a Divine attack? This place is an upright nail ready to be hammered. Despite it seemingly being prepared and ready."

His words hung heavy in the room as if the air itself became lead. All of them knew that this place would be attacked in order to claim possession of Alice for what ever purpose the Heretic desired and the forces of this castle would defend it if it was.

And many would die.

It was something that neither Harry or Alice wanted on their conscience.

"I'll still inform them," Harry said, shaking off the subtle misery he felt, as he strode out of the room, "hopefully they can make it in time before everything goes to shit."

The door closed loudly at these ominous last words.

Leaving only a pensive Campione and Hime-Miko to dwell on their thoughts.

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Water from the sea trickled through the great cavern, its sound mingling with the quiet moans and groans of a great mass of unconscious people. Man, woman or child. Worker and beggar. Rich and poor. All of these and more were among the number.

And above them, watching them closely where they were laid, sat a Goddess on her dark throne.

Ereshkigal closely examined each of the living souls before her from where she was seated, the distance not hindering her at all. Eyeing them carefully and measuring them for there power. Comparing them against the qualities she needed. So far a mere dozen of them had met the unknown standards she set and she still had many more see.

Those she had found lacking had already been...disposed of.

A quiet snuffling drew her attention from the dregs below her, to the massive bovine face beside her. The face was easily as big as her throne, even without the wickedly sharp horns, dwarfing her five and a half foot stature with ease.

"I know, my Consort," she crooned rubbing her darkened hands over the beast's massive jowls, "be patient. You will soon have your battlelust fulfilled with the blood of the abominations that that _harlot_ so likes begetting." by then her voice was harsh and her face sneering.

A rumbling roar echoed from the great beast's throat and the cavern shook with its power, causing a Gallu amongst the human trash to almost slip as he carried the human.

"Careful!" the Queen of Irkalla snapped at her servant, "I have need of the trash alive and well. It would not serve my purpose if its small mind was dashed against the stones."

A feeling of [Dread] filled the air as light seemed to flee the cavern and the encroaching darkness gathered around the Queen in an eerie caress. The Gallu seemed to cower before the Queen's ire. Even the great bull shifted back nervously on its hooves.

"F-f-f-orgive m-m-m-me, m-mistress," the demon stuttered out in fear, "I w-will be more c-c-careful."

"See that you do," she hissed out, a little mollified at the demonstration of her servants fearful respect towards her. Such devotion was rarely seen amongst the offal of the modern world.

"That is the last we need," she growled to her other servants, in sinful pleasure at what would come next, "dispose of the rest as you will."

Seeing that his Queen had returned her attention to the mound of still humans, and his slathering brethren among them as they stalked around for their prize, the Gallu scuttled as quickly as he dared towards the more hidden cavern behind the main one that opened onto the cold sea whilst still carefully cradling the precious cargo.

The Great Queen spared a malicious glance towards the hidden cavern that contained an important part of her plan as piercing human screams and guttural growls filled the dank cave. Her vicious gleaming eyes piercing the darkness, ignoring the bloody debaunchery happening below her, to watch as her servant bound the slightly more useful piece of human offal, along with the previous dozen, upright to a wooden chair...

Seated before a wooden round table...that glowed an eerie emerald green.

And within the Domain of Immortality, the Adversary laughed.

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hey folks,  
I hope you enjoyed the chapter. A heads up for all my fans out there... my posting schedule will be getting a bit hectic for the next few months so I will only be posting every 7-14 days. I am sorry if inconveniences any of you but I have to make a living.

As always please review.

P.S. I will be creating an Story Ideas folio so please watch out for it and tell me what you think of them and if I should go forward with creating the story. I will post snippet scenes of the story and go from there.


	11. Chapter 10

The Wild Campione

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Campione

Hey folks,  
Okay first of all to Nameless, my apologies for my somewhat rude and low bar explanation on my lack of political acumen. I would like to point out, though, that such politics is something I honestly have no idea how to create or write about unlike Tom Clancy (may he rest in peace). I will take your ideas and criticisms on board but politics will not play a large part in my story and for that I am sorry.

Second of all, this chapter is where things really start to heat up. Not literally though. I will encourage everyone who reads this to give their criticism on the fight scenes as that is a weak point in my stories that I desperately want to improve upon. This arc will extend for maybe 2-3 more chapters after this so I will make it the best I can.

Third of all, for spoilers, the Black Prince will sadly not make an appearance in this arc. Sorry for those who wanted it but these Campione are now on a blood hunt and have no desire or time to observe niceties, especially with what happens this chapter.

Lastly, WarGamer08, please get a hold of me with the Authority, please!

Now on with the show!

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It had been a frantic couple of days for the Greenwich Association. After their Campione had been informed by their guest of the possible activities of the Heretic Goddess he had been on the warpath. He had nigh stormed into Alexandria, his aura of power uncontrolled and flaring causing many in attendance to feel like a massive predator was staring them in the face, petrifying them with abject fear. He met this fear with firm orders.

_'Focus on finding the missing village people. We find them and we will, hopefully, find where the bitch of a goddess has gone to ground. If we are fast enough, maybe we can rescue some of the survivors.'_

They had quickly scrambled to do as he commanded, his demeanour, so different from his normally amicable personality, warning them that to piss him off any further would not be in their best interests. If they wanted to live, anyway.

Normally finding an ordinary someone, who didn't have a large or uncontrolled pool of power, like a Divine Beast, powerful untrained magus, Hime-miko or Heretic God, on a world or country wide scale, through mystical or mundane means, would be an almost futile effort that only sheer dumb luck could rectify.

Thankfully, or not depending on your point of view, one of their own people was among the abducted.

This aided the search via the, what was sadly referred to as, Closure Protocol. A joint effort of the Keepers and the Stals a century ago, it was made for those in the field in the form of a small runic tattoo on the forearm of the recipient. It activated when one had died and sent a small pulse of magical power which was then received or detected by a massive, beach ball sized, globe shaped quartz crystal held in the backrooms of Alexandria. This enormous crystal was mystically anchored to the Earth like a primitive, magical version of GPS, with the shapes of countries and continents of the time seemingly carved into it, and glowed blood red at the part of the globe that corresponded with the place of death of the field operative so that further teams could both investigate and retrieve the fallen and bring closure to friends and family, thus the name.

There were problems with it though.

The distance between the operatives resting place and Magie Festung determined how long it took for the magic to traverse the distance, without other factors interfering. In this case it had taken several days for the magic to be received and, because of the fact that it was probably in the vicinity of a powerful deity, the exact location was difficult to determine as the spell had spread out over a rather large area of the south-west coast of the United Kingdom and the globe had no real ability to zoom in on locations for a more accurate reading.

Still everyone worked with what they had and had since moved on to more mundane resources such as on sight reconnaissance with allies in the area, which, unfortunately, did not include the Black Prince. Evidently he was on the other side of the world, somewhere in South America, tracking down a lead for who knows what reason. They did, however, due to the recently signed treaty, have an inroad into a Merfolk rookery in the area. With their rather powerful link to the ocean and the nearby coastline, they would be able to search the area swiftly and even identify possible disturbances in the natural leylines that a Heretic Goddess would give off in the area.

It had taken some juggling to identify, locate and communicate with them but once they were able to, and told them it was at the request of the 'Child Campione' and a 'Potter', they were more than happy, even eager, to help and had sent out some of their best Hunters to fulfil this task. They were currently waiting on news to come back from the Blue Haven (as it was translated from the screeching language of the water dwelling denizens) Rookery before they more forward with anymore battle plans.

Morraine and her daughter waited outwardly calm, but inwardly anxious, for news from their allies. They too had felt the almost primal rage that lurked beneath Harry's cold mask that he showed to the world at large. His words, when in any conversation that was necessary, were just shy of biting after Lord Salvatore had graciously informed him on the current state of affairs involving the missing village people. The entirety of the castle were walking on eggshells around the young Campione. Even his guest, the King of Swords, felt the slight menace that escaped the young man's control and was slightly cautious, though it was to a lesser extent compared to the rest of the residents.

Except for Princess Alice.

The young woman in her mid-twenties (though thanks to her illness and magical power had only aged to her mid-teens) was able to, by simply being in her younger friends presence, soothe his volatile hidden rage and ease his mind and spirit to the point that he was even able to laugh in good humour. Something that was very short within the castle at this point in time.

Anya squirmed slightly in her seat as she drank to tea with her mother to pass the time. She could still feel the traces of the raw power and emotion that the friend she thought she knew had emitted in copious amounts when he had given them their marching orders,as it were. She had never seen her friend filled with such... strong emotion and power. Oh she intellectually knew that he was a Campione, and thus had great power, she had even seen it action for Heaven's sake, but she had never felt that he was dangerous to her. That belief had been shot down in flames when he had stalked in, like a big cat on the hunt, and ordered the whole department around.

She honestly didn't what to think of her friend after having seen this side of him and was more than a little scared- no, terrified- that it could be aimed at her. And there was nothing she could do to stop him.

The sound of the great library doors opening with a deep echoing groan drew her back to reality. A glimpse at the doors had her swallowing heavily.

It was Harry.

Thankfully he seemed to be in a more controlled and placid state of mind. Probably due to the gentle hand of the Princess on his arm. The Italian Campione, Lord Salvatore Doni, came in just behind them.

Their Campione then addressed the now hushed room.

"Good evening," he spoke with a genteel grace and a small smile, neither of which reached his flinty eyes, he swiftly got down to business, "what news do you have for me?"

Morraine calmly put down her cup with a slight click that was heard throughout the room as she rose to her feet, "Our investigations have borne fruit and narrowed down the possible central location of the adversary we now face." her voice was calm and clinical, delivering a report to her superior.

A raised eyebrow from the shorter male had her continue on.

"Indicators that we received from the Closure Protocol," here Harry's eyes closed briefly in pain, full knowing the reason they even had indicators, as Morraine continued on undaunted, already having come to terms with the loss of a fellow member of the Association, "show a strong presence on the South-West coast of the United Kingdom, specifically near Cornwall. Our allies in the area, the Blue Haven Rookery of the Merfolk, have sent some their people into the area to investigate. We are all waiting to hear back from them before taking the next step."

Harry nodded in understanding, a hint of warmth and thankfulness now edging into his gaze. Beside him, the normally cheerful, but currently grim, Princess Alice seemed to droop slightly in relief that the ordeal is coming to an end. His fellow Campione, his generally smiling visage now like stone, seemed to stand straighter and the air around him was filled with an eager desire for battle.

"Good," Harry sighed as his tense shoulders loosened, the end of an anxious ordeal in sight, "Prepare all fiel-"

BOOOM! CRACK!

An earth cracking explosion rent the air and the ground shook and kept shaking. People fell to the ground, unable to maintain their balance, along with hanging pictures and vases and other decorations. The windows rattled the same as the doors as the very earth they stood upon shifted and shook. Screams and yells filled the air as panic spread amongst all of the residents. It only increased when power was lost and the emergency lighting came on.

Harry had managed to maintain his footing, thanks to his training with the Stals, and held up (and close) Alice at the same time. Doni easily managed to ride out what seemed to be a shockwave or quake.

Finally it managed to subside after a minute, a slight quiet spread as everyone waited anxiously for aftershocks, broken only by the short and fearful breaths of the many within the castle.

Harry was the first to recover his wits followed swiftly by a slightly pink cheeked Alice and a frowning Doni.

"Status report." he barked as others began to move.

"Seismic disturbance, your majesty." one of the Keepers responded as she stumbled to her station from where she could cast better diagnostic spells in regards to the area, "Our wards and barriers were able to deflect a fair portion of its power but we still got hit by some of the spill over. The true power of the quake has hit the city. Badly."

The emergency lighting shut off as the main power was then restored and a TV in the corner returned to life, the pictures it showed causing Harry to order someone to turn it up as his stomach began to sink heavily into his feet.

He let the words of the dishevelled, dusty and bleeding presenter wash over him as the scenes of crumbled buildings, cracked open roads, corpses of the dead and dying along with the wrecked bodies of the injured lit by the crimson sunset chilling his heart.

Doni was the one who voiced what everyone was thinking. His face twisted in shock and something approaching horror. A mirror of Alice's at that moment.

"What. The. Fuck. Happened?" his disbelieving voice rising over the broadcast.

An odd sound, something between a static discharge and wind chimes drew his attention to a series of newly made crystal balls that lined one of the walls, mounted on clawed tripods and separated from others by a series of cubicle walls. One of them was flickering with images like a poorly tuned television.

Striding over to the ornament, Harry placed a hand on top whilst channeling some of his magic. Immediately the picture cleared up showing a bleeding goblin warrior, in full armour, leaning heavily on a broken spear.

His voice, high and frantic, was immediately heard.

"-quest assistance. I re- My lord," the being finally noticing that the magical version of a 'video call' being made had gone through.

"What is the situation, warrior?" Harry commanded firmly, causing the goblin to draw a deep and calming breath.

"My lord, at the request of Gringotts, Zurich branch, we request assistance from yourself and your people, as written within the Pallas Treaty, in battle against a being of Divine nature." the goblin spoke quickly glancing over it's shoulder, as if expecting to be roughly interrupted. A loud roaring, thunderous bangs and goblin war cries were heard in the background.

Harry stiffened as he connected the dots. A Divine being, whether a Heretic God or not, attacking Gringotts at the same time a earthquake had shook the same city. There was obviously a connection.

"Details, soldier" he snapped as others around him, hearing the discussion, began to move quickly, knowing that they would soon be called upon to fight. Messengers were sent to other parts of castle to inform all other personnel.

"It happened less than hour ago, sir" the goblin spoke, increasingly nervous as the background noise of combat grew louder, "The ...Thing just appeared in one of the lower tunnels. We didn't even know it was there until it trampled a full squad of warriors and started roaring and banging around the tunnel. More squads were dispatched, thinking it was just one of the more dangerous underground species that had wandered into one of the travel tunnels. Then it let off a massive blast of power that shook everything, crushing the squads sent in the process. Buildings collapsed, along with the tunnels that lead to the surface where we station much of our manpower near the bank and the vaults. It is now a few caverns away from entering the city and we can barely distract it let alone fight it effectively. We need help. Desperately."

Harry's mind quickened looking for an answer to the crisis. He could teleport with his Authority now but he had never been to the goblin city so it would be almost impossible to get there save by sheer luck if he used what he saw behind the goblin as a destination, not to mention it would take a little time for the Stals to get ready and assemble.

Harry paused for a moment before he swivelled his head around to look directly at the King of Swords, a still pond amongst the rushing river that was the rest of the Association.

"Up for a fight, Doni?" he questioned with a raised eyebrow.

Doni's face cleared for a moment and steel edged into his eyes as a bloodthirsty smirk crossed his face before he gave a firm nod in assent.

Harry swiftly turned back to the goblin.

"I will be there in a moment with Lord Salvatore. Do what you can to hold it at bay."

"Yes, sir." the now relieved goblin, the image dying as it turned around to give orders.

Harry didn't waste time that he didn't have in the first place.

"New orders!" he roared, gaining the attention he required, "Two squads, one Stal and one Keeper, will stay here and hold down the fort. Half of the rest, form up and make your way to Gringotts as fast as possible to aid them in excavating the tunnels toward the Undercity. Myself and Lord Salvatore will teleport straight to the Undercity in order to defend it and slay the Divine being that caused this whole bloody disaster.

The remaining half will help all non-magical aid and rescue stations in the city in whatever manner they deem fit."

Harry took a deep breath as he finished his commands, eying all of those under his banner.

"Godspeed, ladies and gentlemen,"

With those last words Harry strode from the room, closely followed by a grinning Salvatore and a red Alice.

Behind them, the river of people once more flowed, their destination decided.

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Alice was furious.

No, she was beyond furious and approaching full blown inarticulate rage.

And it was directed straight at the back of the slightly sweating, but hiding it, local Campione and friend.

"What do you mean 'I won't be coming.' ?!" she hissed loudly as Harry studiously ignored as he and Salvatore strode towards the his personal armoury adjacent to his chambers. Their steps were light and quick as they hastened to ready themselves for an ordeal.

"It means exactly that, Alice," he responded calmly, much to the Hime-Miko's frustration, as he threw open the armoured doors that lead to his weapons, along with his fellow Campione's, "you are a powerful magus and more, I will be the first to admit that, but your skills do not lend themselves to offence, attacking or combat, as you, yourself, have admitted on more than one occasion. Taking you with me and Doni in a battle against a powerful Divine being is not the wisest of moves and could result in either my, Doni's or, more importantly, your death. So, you will stay here."

Doni strode past the fuming and blushing Witch to reach his sword that was placed on a small stand off to the side. A check of the sheath and a small pull to loosen it in the scabbard and he was ready to go.

After he watched the forthcoming entertainment anyway.

"Are you forgetting something,_ your majesty_?" she said, almost spitting the title as if it was rotting on her tongue, as Harry belted the sheath containing Diamant to his waist, the tone of her voice giving him pause " I was able to, with slight assistance, seal away the Heretic God [King Arthur Pendragon]. I should be able to, at least, help you in a supporting capacity-"

"And you were rendered _bedridden_," he interrupted sharply as he strapped a harness across his chest to hold his spear, Rubin, to his back, "for life as a result if not for my becoming a Campione and supplying you with [Golden Apples]. Even then, if you use too much power, which you most definitely will if you face a Divine being, you will inevitably return to such a state."

He finally spun around to face her directly, reaching up slightly to place his callused hands upon her pale shoulders, his green eyes, so similar to her own, piercing her with the raw emotion, that she couldn't seem to define, that filled them.

"I never want to see you like that again."

Silence filled the room, disturbed only the intake of breath from the sole female and the murmur of actions taking place in the corridors.

Alice looked at him, shocked and mouth agape. Such words to her had never been expressed before. She felt there was more than just concern for a good friend behind the words but, for the life of her, she couldn't seem to interpret them. She settled for merely gazing slightly down into her good friend's eyes, her anger and fear mixed together with concern for his health diminished to almost nothing in surprise and shock.

"Why?" She croaked, confused. A wealth of hidden meaning in that single, one word question. Meanings she didn't know herself.

Harry, seeming to realise the grasp he had on her, swiftly released her, much to her confusion (and disappointment), before he reached for a pair of odd looking silvery bands that snapped onto his firm and bare biceps. Not looking at her he answered.

"I honestly do not know why it grieves me so much to see you in such a manner but I know that I will do all within my power to prevent it from happening. That includes stopping you from participating in such a battle as the one happening now.

"I don't want to have to resort to extreme measures," he sighed, "but I will if have to. To keep you safe. So, I ask you, one more time, from the bottom of my heart, please stay here." He nigh begged of the Princess, his voice pleading for her to understand some thing he himself did not but still expressed.

Alice looked at her war ready friend. Clad in leather pants and combat boots with a simple t-shirt covering his torso, with his armaments at ready and slightly turned away face resolved, he cut an intimidating figure belied by the thick and almost broken voice he addressed her with. She didn't want him to be in danger, not when they had gotten closer over the past fortnight, not until she could unravel the meanings of the emotions that filled her when he stood by her.

But he was needed. Needed to fight and battle and kill those that what seek to harm her friends here and, indeed, had already done so. She selfishly wanted someone else to deal with it but knew that there were none save Salvatore, who wouldn't be able to get to the site of the battle quickly enough. Her duty, and his, overruled their own desires.

"Fine," she whispered reluctantly, "I'll stay here," she then glared fiercely at the slightly happier British boy, causing him to flinch, "but, so help me, if you do not return alive and well, or, Heaven forbid, die, I will rip your soul from the Underworld and beat you black and blue for the next century. Am I clear?"

"Crystal," he squeaked with a pale face.

"Let's go then," interrupted a grinning slyly Italian Campione. Salvatore had had his fill of drama and humour between the two and now it was time to quench his battle lust.

Harry nodded, his face once more back to its natural hue before he strode to stand next to the taller man and reached up to place a firm hand on his shoulder.

Harry carefully recalled the picture he saw in the orb, where it was and who was there, and incanted the words of power and began to glow a bright yellow causing Alice to shield her eyes.

**"Wings of Heaven, grant me speed to chase my enemy."**

The yellow light flared to encompass both of the Campione momentarily and vanished.

Taking along with it two battle ready Campione.

And leaving a worried Witch.

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To Salvatore, the trip to the Undercity was a brief step through a tunnel of light and a sudden stop.

The two Campione appeared into what seemed a province of Hell.

Harry tuned out the echoing roars, war cries and breaking stone, frozen still, causing his Authority to deactivate, as he looked aghast at the carnage already wrought by the beast. Walls were tumbled and shattered, the great reliefs of past leaders wiped out, statues crushed and both homes and streets were seen split and destroyed. All of these lit eerily by crystalline veins of blue light that was emitted by the cavern's walls.

But it was the bodies that distraught him the most.

Corpses of brave goblin warriors, young maidens, babes in arms and so many more littered the ground, strewn about like offal. Obviously the fighting was so intense that the People who lived here couldn't spare even a single man for them to give them dignity in death.

Harry felt his body begin to shake and tremble of its own volition. Not out of fear of the abomination that committed this atrocity. Nor out of terror of the evidence of such strength and power needed to do this. Not even out of anger for harming those who couldn't fight.

But out of sheer _Rage_ so cold it burnt hotter than the sun.

Harry turned to his companion, the Italians's visage showing a very strong dislike for the result of the carnage.

"Let's move," the British born said harshly before sprinting towards the sound of the din of battle, Salvatore a mere step behind.

Harry was glad he trained with the Stals as he leapt from rubble to rubble, leapfrogging different obstacles and swing from poles to cross gaps, neither of them losing a shred of momentum or speed as the two Campione moved toward the battle.

The parkour and free running they were taught by Alexei easily allowed him to move through the rubble strewn thoroughfares towards the main city. Where they had appeared was a small outpost or satellite village of Undercity which was, thankfully and frighteningly, close to it by about a mile. Not very far for a physically trained individual with a Campione's physical attributes.

As the two Godslayer's moved, the din of battle grew louder and louder. Soon it had reached a level where they could nothing else but roars, yells and clashing.

At this point they had reached the last cavern that lay in their path before entering Undercity proper.

It was here that they observed the battle and the form of the enemy.

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Hardgrasp of the Gem Talon clan was not having a good day.

As he continuously poured his magic into the barrier of the city walls in an attempt to keep the massive enemy out. He pondered the actions that had led up to this moment.

_Flashback_

_It had started well enough, an average day at the office as a Guard Leader followed by a warm welcome by his mate and children at home after his shift had finished. They had just sat down for an early meal when the sirens had wailed._

_He had immediately given his apologies and dashed to put on his armour and weapons once more as he sprinted out his home towards the nearest militia station, buckling his armour as he ran. The sirens were an 'all call' signal used for emergencies. Basically it meant that every able-bodied warrior-trained goblin was to assemble at a predetermined area in their locale for further instructions._

_He was one of the first to arrive, followed swiftly by the rest of those in his quarter of the city, many of them friends and even family. By the time that ninety percent of the locals had shown, the Commander had finally arrived._

_Hardgrasp was tall for a goblin, around five feet, but the Commander was easily taller than him at just under six with a swarthy and scarred face with a brief shock of white hair than came to the nape of his neck that framed his stern features._

_He was also armed to the teeth._

_He also didn't mince his words._

_"Goblins!" He had roared out, his voice carrying out over the other hundred goblins under his command, "Warriors! Our home is threatened by an unknown entity! It has already destroyed one squad of Patrollers! We have been chosen to destroy it and avenge our brethren! Fall in and move out,"_

_Short, simple and to the point. No messing around. It made Hardgrasp proud to privately call his Commander 'Father'._

_The company was quick to move, no other orders were needed, as they formed into their teams within the company and followed swiftly behind their Commander, trusting him to lead them to the sight of the enemy with what information he had received but not voiced to them all._

_It had worried him slightly that the Commander had lead them to what seemed to be only a short distance from the city walls, maybe half a dozen large caverns away, when they started to hear screams of panic and fear as well as the roars of what may have been the enemy echo off of the walls of the great tunnel. Having an enemy so close to the city that contained his family had not filled him with any joy._

_The Commander was swift to order a double time march, making them swiftly pass a few more caverns before they came unto the enemy, it's appearance giving them more pause than the shaking of the earth that its wild thrashing produced._

_It was huge, barely fitting into the massive cave that contained a small village, now leveled to the ground. Its shape was that of a massive bull but that of an idealized bull. A bull crafted from the dreams and nightmares of those who had never seen one. Bulging muscles and wickedly sharp and sweeping horns that had no business being on a bovine of earthly and real descent._

_The fact it had massive black feathery wings, the same colour as it's hide, sort of helped confirm that._

_It rampaged around, crashing into the walls of the vast cavern, crushing some of the few remaining frantically fleeing citizens beneath it's ivory white hooves and creating a great shaking within the area. It also seemed to have a presence of power and madness about it._

_The Commander was swift to take in the carnage and give his orders._

_"Volley fire!" he roared out, "Explosion type. On my mark."_

_The Company, as one, held out their right hands in a grasping gesture and, with force of will and magic, all created a bright red orb of coruscating energy within it and aimed it at their adversary._

_"Fire!" the Commander yelled as he fired his own spell._

_The Company responded in unison by releasing their orbs toward the beast. It comparison to the being, the orbs were minuscule but each of them were strong enough to level, at least, a stone house, evidence of the amount of training each of warriors had done to achieve such a feat of spell craft._

_Only for it to be all for naught._

_The Company could only watch in disbelief as, just before they struck the rampaging bovine, the spells seemed to... unravel and return to being a mere ball of magical power._

_Which was then promptly absorbed by the monster before them._

_The rampaging beast finally seemed to take notice of them, as if just seeing them and let out a massive bass bellow and charged the now pale and recovering goblin force, ignoring what stood in its way and shaking the earth beneath its hooves._

_The Commander, once more, gave his orders._

_"Phalanx formation!" He barked quickly in the face of an oncoming enemy easily the size of a five story house, "Full extension!"_

_Hardgrasp's comrades swiftly stood close together, shields locked and spears thrust forward. In unison, a charge of magic was sent through their goblin wrought polearms, making extend from six feet long to just under twenty, the weight not hindering the well trained force. Their formation was now a death trap for a charging enemy._

_Or so they thought._

_The oncoming bull, ignoring the sharp and deadly spear points directed towards it, hit the formation like a freight train._

_CRASH!_

_The sound of their bovine adversary striking the shield and spear wall, at speed, was similar to the time Hardgrasp had accidently knocked his mate's pots and pans to the floor. Only amplified by about a hundred times and with much more horrific consequences._

_The spears had snapped and crumbled upon coming close to the hide of this unnatural being. The shields had fared no better, failing to halt the swift and crushingly powerful advance. It ran straight through the formation, crushing a dozen on its way and impaling more than a few upon its horns. Several more were somewhat lucky and thrown to the side by the force of the beast. Hardgrasp was one of the lucky few who were merely tossed._

_With a single attack, this beast had nigh destroyed the Company._

_From that point on, it was a massively dangerous game of Keep Away. As it was shown that their weapons and magic was ineffective against it, the Commander had instead made diversions like exploding an empty house next to it drawing its attention and others things but never entering into direct combat. Any means they had at stalling it and keeping it from Undercity as well buying time for civilian evacuation, the better._

_Even then, they were only able to slow the advance, giving up ground to the beast to ensure the survival of their fellow goblin. Eventually they had arrived at one of the smaller caverns leading to Undercity. One that was too small for it to enter._

_The Company didn't waste time._

_On the command of their superior, the remaining goblins of the party created a series of large pits, designed to slow or even stop the rampaging beast that was now continuously crashing against the strangely weakening walls of the smaller opening, aiming to crash through it to reach its prey. It was hoped that its hoofed feet would have the same weakness as it's more normal counterparts in the earthly realm, the pits making it dangerous for the beast to cross without it causing damage to itself, similar to the cattle grids used on the country roads of non-magicals._

_It was after it was done that Hardgrasp noticed something strange._

_The beast had stopped._

_No longer could the smashing of bestial fury meeting solid stone be heard. Only deep and heavy breathing filled with snorts. A low rumble drew the goblin's attention to the small entrance, the small hairs on his neck rising in apprehension. The sight that graced his and his companion's eyes was not for the faint of heart._

_A baleful bloodshot black pupiless eye, easily the size of the Commander himself, glared at them with rage, fury and an alien desire for blood, that had no place being in the head of a bovine creature, from its lowered head._

_Hardgrasp had never been more terrified in his life. He had felt the power of the beast on the failed first volley and up close when subsequently charged through their ranks but it was nothing compared to what it was emitting now. Before it was power and madness, now it was still powerful and mad but now it mingled with a focused hunger for their death and a bottomless cold rage._

_Keeping its eye on the tunnel, the earth shook slightly as its mighty hooves backed it away from the opening slightly. As it did the great shining ivory horns and its ivory white hooves began to glow an incandescent gold light and began to emit even more power. But to Hardgrasp, who had been one of the first goblins to encounter a Campione in recent times, the power was familiar, it spoke of majesty and strength, of ruler and warrior, of earth and destruction._

_Of Gods._

_Whilst his compatriots all watched in apprehensive puzzlement, Hardgrasp reacted quickly. He knew they were beyond outmatched and now knew the origin of this beastly monster due to his idle acquaintance with the local Campione. He grabbed the nearest gaping warrior and shook him harshly, gaining his attention._

_"Get to the nearest [Mountain Eye], warrior" he barked quickly, glancing over his shoulder as the golden glow slowly increased, "Make a link with Magie Festung!"_

_"What for?" the soldier answered confused, his eyes drifting back to the glowing beast before he was shaken once more._

_"Because that beast is [Divine]!" Hardgrasp snarled causing the warrior to pale a sickly white in understanding, "We need something stronger than what we have available to us. The only way we can fight is if we have a Campione. If we don't, then Undercity will be destroyed!" by this point the glow had become comparable to a small sun, making the Company inch backwards, instincts telling them something was coming but discipline keeping them in place, "Now run!" Hardgrasp roared as he shoved the smaller warrior making him stumble before regaining his balance and sprinting off, his spear lying forgotten on the cold stone._

_"Fall Back!" Hardgrasp roared, much to the rest of the Company's shock and his father's anger and shame, goblins did not retreat, no matter the enemy._

_By then it was too late._

_The golden glow about the creature had finally reached the point that none could look upon it without going blind. The beast reared up on its muscular hindquarters for a brief moment before, with a echoing roar, brought its hooves down upon the stone beneath them with a thunderous boom._

_Then all hell broke loose._

_The golden aura, that had surrounded the beast, flashed out, expanding rapidly and before the golden wave, everything disintegrated. Solid and worked stone became dust in a moment at its cursed touch, weapons and armour belonging to the brave, but foolish, souls that stood before it shattered and broke as the bodies of the goblins who wielded them were tossed about like a feather in a hurricane._

_But the worst thing to happen was the wound to the earth itself._

_The earth began to shake a child's rattle, sending the few standing goblins to ground as they attempted to ride out the churning and shifting beast that the earth had become. Great stalactites cracked from the roof of the shifting cavern and fell among the warriors, missing most but managing to strike, impale and kill an unlucky few._

_But even that event paled into insignificance compared to the last effect._

_The aura had since broken down the wall that had halted the beast's advance but that was not the only thing it did. Hardgrasp watched in disbelief and fear as the earth before the massive bovine's hooves began to crack open with a screech like a wounded and dying animal. Slowly a great chasm seemed to yawn open, like a great maw of some hungry beast, leading to only endless darkness, and swallow frantically scrambling goblins, both warrior and not, as they attempted to get away from edge of the appearing chasm. The crumbling stone on the edge of the pit their only hold for their grasping hands. All the while the earth kept shifting and heaving like a dying man gasping for his last breath._

_Only to fail and be swallowed by the gaping darkness._

_Hardgrasp could only watch and hold tightly to the cavern walls as the vast majority of what was left of his Company, his father included, fell into the abyss. His heart heavy with anger and sorrow, he kept his grasp until the churning finally stopped, the unearthly screeching keen from the ground stopping. Silence reigned supreme as Hardgrasp and the last five remaining warriors stared across the expanse into the vivid red eyes of the beast that had caused such destruction. Its flanks were heaving slowly, evidence that the attack it had launched had tired it somewhat and was recovering its energy before advancing once more._

_Hardgrasp took command quickly, despite the raw hatred that teemed through his veins for the monster before him he needed to put his men ahead of vengeance._

_"Retreat to Undercity with all haste," he snapped at his, now, subordinates, "There is no force we can bring to bear that halt this beast any longer. Our only hope is to activate the [Great Wards] and ride out its attack until the Campione can arrive."_

_He looked at the uncertain faces of his brethren before snapping out another command._

_"Now!" He barked as he too ran towards his home._

_The others were quick to follow._

_Flashback End_

Hardgrasp was flung out of his idle musings as the [Great Wards], the last defence of Undercity, was struck once more by the great strength and power of this beast making him grunt slightly along with many other goblin warriors that maintained them as he felt the pressure of holding them against the Divine Beast.

Hardgrasp was thankful that the beast's power was mainly physical in nature. If the beast had more spells or intelligence the walls would have already fallen. Even saying that, the walls and wards could only stand maybe another five minutes of such battery. The medieval defences such as hot oil and individual spells from some of the more adventurous, daring and foolish has no effect on the great being as it ignored them and kept up its angered assault.

Another hard strike made the goblins wince again as the bright red shield the extended from their walls flickered before solidifying once. Only to almost immediately meet another ramming charge attack. The tips of the beast's great horns just clearing the walls.

Hardgrasp watched in grim resignation as the wards flickered again. It would not be much longer before they gave out, in fact it was almost a miracle that they had held out this long. They had been designed for defence against invading forces of the bygone days like rival goblin clans, not for standing against a Divine Beast.

For the first time in many a year, Hardgrasp of the Gem Talon clan, a goblin who believed in making your own path in life with your own two hands, prayed to whatever deities that listened for a miracle.

ROOAAAARRRRRRRRRiiiiiiiiiiii!

The great beast's roars of anger and rage that it bellowed as it persistently struck the walls suddenly changed to groaning shrieks of pain, agony and surprise.

This was swiftly followed by loud war cry. Though Hardgrasp noticed that it didn't seem to sound like it came from a goblin's throat.

The walls that guarded the city grew silent as those who stood atop them peered over them from where they were hunched and sitting whilst supplying the wards with power.

To Hardgrasp, the sight that he beheld filled him with hope and satisfaction.

Hope, that he and his people now had a chance at surviving.

Satisfaction, that his people held out long enough for, as humans would put it, the cavalry to arrive.

He only hoped the cavalry could turn the massive murderous bovine into minute steaks. He hadn't had a good beef dish in quite a while.

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Upon seeing the Divine Beast literally trying to 'bring the house down', the two Campione didn't waste any time and attacked each of the beast's flanks. Harry with a massive magically enhanced throw of his spear, Rubin, and Salvatore, after charging the angered animal, with a great slash with his sword to its hind left ankle, the only place he could reach due to the beings massive size.

"**ROOAAAARRRRRRRRRiiiiiiiiiiii!"**

Harry grinned with a devil's pleasure, his warrior's blood riding high, happy to have wounded the now turning and angry beast, as he recalled his spear with a small gesture of the hand, causing it to reappear there. His grin turned to a slight frown as he felt the difference in the weight of the spear and scowled darkly as he noticed that Rubin looked to have been dunked in acid and some it had melted away. Obviously a specific Authority of the beast before him.

Not good.

The beast, wounded for the first time, spun upon its attackers, it's now burning crimson eyes focusing on the closest pest.

Even from this distance, Harry could see the devil may care grin on his peer's face as he faced down the enormous bull, his sword and arm glowing a bright silver with his Authority.

The beast charged the Italian, its size making it need only two steps to get into range of its smaller adversary, and swept its greats horns, easily as thick as Salvatore was tall, in an arc toward him.

Salvatore met it with a massive stroke of his blade.

KA-BOOM!

The shockwave of the two forces meeting rattled the walls of the city and the cavern itself seemed to rumble ominously.

Harry narrowed his eyes slightly, the bull had been forced back onto its rear hooves, its raven black wings flapping frantically to maintain its balance and then it's back via the sheer power of the two forces meeting, making the cavern quake again and causing several dangerous cracking sounds to be heard and a few stalactites to fall. The Italian wasn't so lucky as his weight was not enough to prevent him from being thrown a large distance, shock on his face that the force of [Silver Rippling Arm] had been met head on and the enemy was not even cut, before he landed into a roll and was on his feet once more, his demeanour now more cautious as he eyed the rising beast.

Harry noticed the great cracking sounds increase as the bull was finally back to snorting on its hooves. His eyes traveled along the once pristine floor of the cavern. It was littered with broken stones and shattered golden statues. But, more importantly, were the deep footprints left by the winged beast, that looked as if something burning hot had eaten through the floor. Similar to his spear...

A corrosive skin or hide perhaps? No... It was more than that.

A deep bellow bounced off of the cavern walls as the beast charged again. Salvatore dodged the charging behemoth and raked his blade along the tendons of the forehoof, making it roar in pain and stumble slightly before it suddenly straightened and bucked out a hoof the size of station wagon, making the King of Swords drop and roll backwards to avoid it, letting it miss by less than a foot and ruffle his hair from the raw force.

Harry was the only one to notice that the wound inflicted by Salvatore was quickly healed.

At the same time that a portion of the floor seemed to suddenly crumble to dust.

Harry felt something click together in his mind. A great bull with wings was an old motif from the Fertile Crescent, from Ancient Sumeria. It was the cause of the great quake that had rocked the city and probably formed the great pit he and Salvatore had to traverse. In addition it seemed to absorb or, perhaps a better description would be, devour energy of some form or another. Considering that their main foe was [Ereshkigal] then this would be...

"[Gugalanna]. The Bull of Heaven." He murmured to himself, eying the oversized bullfight before him, with his peer as the very disadvantaged matador.

He needed to get the information to the idiot.

Spreading his arms wide, he slowly incanted the spell words for a variation of one his Authorities. His mind delving to that place in his soul that housed them and calling up one that felt of hunger and fangs and twisting it.

**"Brother of the fang, break thy chains, slip thy leash, charge forth and ravage all that stands before you."**

At the end of these words a massive howl of a wolf was heard, making the combatants halt in surprise, before a swiftly moving, massive and inky black form blurred toward the Bull of Heaven and knocking it backward with a snarl.

Harry didn't waste time as he sprinted towards the somewhat surprised Italian as he beheld a formidable sight.

A mere head shorter than the bull with burning blue eyes and ragged fur the colour of midnight, a great wolf snarled at the bull that lowed deeply and stepped backward, cautious of the drooling maw containing fangs bigger than some some swords and claws that gleamed like knives in the dark of the great cave.

It was a stand off between monsters. The Bull of Heaven, stronger, heavier and more powerful, facing down a monster that could destroy Odin and devour him, the beast of slaughter, Fenrir.

"Doni!" Harry barked harshly, drawing the swordman's attention away from the stand off and to the sprinting Englishman before he skidded to a stop before him, "the beast is regenerating using the earth and absorbing some of the force and power of your attacks!" Harry spat out, "you need to get him off the ground before you can kill the bastard."

Doni frowned deeply, all of his Authorities were either melee based or used disrupt another's Authorities in the case of [Curse of Rampage]. He didn't have any that could be used in such a manner. It was a bad match up for him. He was about to ask what Harry would suggest when bellows and snarls ripped the air as the two behemoths began to fight.

Gugalanna swung his horns toward the wolf before only for it to dodge and dash at his flanks for a claw strike, only for the claws to barley scratch the hide and made the wolf dodge back away from the retaliatory hoof strike. This was repeated again and again as the Bull of Heaven kept turning and the wolf kept lunging.

"What do you suggest?" Doni asked as he kept an eye on the battling monsters as they crashed around the large plaza. The destruction they made awe inspiring.

"Build up your power," Harry said bluntly, "I'll get it in the air, you crush with your full power of that damn sword of yours."

Not arguing Doni closed his eyes and focused, building up the raw power of his Authority, ignoring everything else, his sword held bright and upright above his head.

Harry grimaced to himself, he had no desire of taking the kill of the beast and he didn't quite know enough about the beast and what it became for his [Hunter without Equal] to be effective. Using flames in this area would be a quick way of killing oneself and the wolf before him chewed up power like nobodies business, even with a Campione's reserves.  
So that left...

"Wonderful," Harry groaned before sighing heavily and cracking his neck in preparation, "Well, time to get to work."

As his fellow gathered his power, Harry stared directly at the struggle taking place and began to incant spell words for an Authority he rarely used.

**"Gather before me, spread my words, be my shield and my hands, then fade to whence you came."**

Behind him, gathering high and thick, was a massive cloud bank, dark and stormy, ready to answer its master's call.

With a thought, Harry sent it rushing forward, toward the inattentive struggling beasts.

The clouds seemed to howl as it slammed into the broadside of Gugalanna, making it stagger, before wrapping around it, binding it tightly.

As the beast attempted to struggle and thrash, Harry happily let his control of Fenrir fade and let it return to the Netherworld, making it fade into darkness with a howl of victory. Then came the hard part.

With an effort and strain on his magic and mind, he slowly lifted the beast off of the floor of the cavern until it was frantically thrashing, making him bind it tighter again and again as it almost broke loose, his nose bled and the blood in his head pounded with the strain.

"Do it," he growled to Doni, "Do it now!"

Salvatore's eyes flashed open, glowing a incandescent silver along with his sword and arm and brought it down with a roar.

"ARRRRRRRRRR!"

A flash of silver shot in front of him, streaking toward Gugalanna with unbelievable speed and seemed to strike and pass through the thrashing Heretic deity.

Silence reigned as the beast halted and went quiet. The goblins on the wall were quiet.  
Harry was quiet.

The King of Swords merely grinned.

A echoing crack was heard as the the cavern wall behind the still held aloft beast crumbled along an immense diagonal cut, similar to a sword stroke.

An agony filled roar cut the air as Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven, began to disintegrate, golden dust and energy flowing off the dissipating entity in torrents.

Harry sighed/groaned in relief as the great beast finally vanished and returned to the Realm of Immortality, collapsing onto his ass and releasing the hold of his [Cloud] Authority, his head throbbing like a church bell and his power at low ebb from using [Shepherd of Wolves] at its highest potential short of an Avatar. It was over.

A clap on his shoulder had him turning tiredly toward a dusty faced, but grinning wildly, Italian Idiot.

"Thanks for the help, bro." He chuckled, "I would have been sunk if you hadn't pulled that off."

A great cheer of 'Barook! Barook!' was heard from Undercity as its great gates opened and the residents began to stream out.

"Victory indeed," Harry murmured with a wry smirk as he watched the goblins come towards them the chants growing louder as he kept his seat.

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It was nearly an hour later that the two Godslayers returned to Magie Festung.

The clean up involved there had required Harry to tiredly use another Authority to stabilize the caverns. Evidently the great battles that had raged through them had made for than a few come close to collapsing in on themselves, especially the plaza before Undercity and the one where Hardgrasp, one of few surviving warriors that had encountered Gugalanna, said that the earthquake had been triggered. It was difficult, but they all appreciated his ability to fix the caverns. Even if it was in an unusual way...

Harry idly wondered if the fact he had transmuted much of the stone into a form of diamond had something to do with it.

During that hour the above ground crews from the bank had managed to tunnel through to the passageways leading to the city. Many tears of sorrow, joy and relief were shed by even the most stoic members of the race as family met family and friend met friend.

Harry had received a report from the leader of the humans in the party and found that though there was a great deal of damage down to the city, on both magical and mundane sides, deaths were somewhat lower than they could have been, though the numbers were still rolling in.

The mundane people had experts called in to inspect the city and put together an explanation on how a quake like this had occured but it looked like they were just going to put it down as a proverbial 'act of god'. Not that they were far from wrong...

The local Warlock community, on the other hand, was running around a like frantic chicken and getting nowhere fast. Harry honestly admitted to himself that he hoped they stayed that way, his dislike for the community somewhat tainting his thoughts.

So it was understandable, that after such a long day for both the Italian and British born heroes, that they were a little slow to pick up on things that would have sent their instincts to Defcon 2 in other circumstances.

The first thing that let Harry know something was wrong, was the darkness and lack of greeting in the Alexandria as the two landed there via his [Light Messenger] Authority.

His tired mind and eyes scanned the area as a frown formed upon his sharp facial features, an oddly familiar smell tickling his sensitive nostrils, as he walked through the darkness, not needing sight to navigate in such a familiar environment, and gently clicked on one of the switches for the lights.

Only to show a scene of chaos.

From where he and his fellow Campione to the light switch was a clear area. Outside of it was scene of devastation. Massive bookshelves were collapsed and strewn about along with their valuable contents, desks were destroyed as well as various decorations and some of the [Mountain Eyes] like the goblins had contacted them on, were shattered or chipped. Various scorch marks, the origin of the scent, littered the walls and flow, most probably from battle spells.

All the evidence of a struggle or a fight taking place.

But there were no bodies or blood.

As one, the Campione once more pulled their weapons, both of them swords as they carefully advanced out of the room towards the halls.

"Something isn't right," muttered Doni, eying the dark hall warily.

"What was you first clue?" Harry snapped back sarcastically, as he clicked another light on in the hall, revealing, once more, more devastation and no bodies, "the darkness or the broken furniture?"

Beneath the snappish exterior, Harry felt fear. Knee trembling, sweat making, heart hammering fear. Not for himself.

But for another.

For Alice.

The Campiones' senses and instincts made them disregard several of the hallways and began drifting toward the main apartments, each of them covering the other as comrades or brothers in arms would.

As they both moved carefully in the darkness, another feeling was felt by Harry, causing him to suddenly stiffen and sprint through the halls, ignoring the calls of his 'elder brother' who hastened to catch up.

Harry felt his heart almost breaking out of his chest as he sprinted towards his own chambers, the darkness concealing the carnage that he knows was wrought, the scent of blood over powering most others. Mostly from the dead and strewn bodies of the two squads that lay in the final hall leading to the staterooms, that were left behind at his order. The question of their location and what had happened to them answered in a very grisly fashion.

He ignored his screaming conscience and simply bowed his head in recognition of their actions in protecting something he held dear.

He threw open the large doors to Alice's wrecked chambers, so close to his own.

Something that was taken.

Ignoring the pounding of the Italian's feet, ignoring the broken glass cutting his skin as fell to his knees upon it, ignoring everything around him.

Except for one thing.

Alice was gone.

His friend was taken.

He had failed to protect her.

That night, after all the tragedy, one more roar of rage, grief and sorrow was merely noted and forgotten. Even one that echoed across the city.

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Well folks, I hoped you enjoyed the chapter. I know it took a hell of a long time to write but my work commitments having been kicking my ass as we get prepared for the Christmas seasons a little early.

Also I made a few small changes to the Authorities. In particular it was the Harry's wolf authority.

At the expense of sealing it for a lunar month, or until the next new moon, Harry can summon the Ultimate expression of the Authority as the giant wolf Fenrir. With all the abilities of its lesser brethren and a shit load more powerful. However if it is summoned, it will target the strongest being there, even if it is its summoner. Harry also has no control over the beast except for summoning and dismissing it. So it is a double edged sword.

Another note to all my readers, Salvatore will be getting an Authority out of the fight as I feel that he needs a bit of a boost, even if you disagree that one should be awarded due to two Campione being involved. I would argue that Pandora looks after her children and that she saw that Harry had no desire to acquire one and did not directly attack Gugalanna himself, as in melee combat. Salvatore did however. The Authority will have some restrictions due to the aid given by Harry however.

If you feel this is wrong then please ignore this story as it will happen.

Still, please read and review. Flamers will be ignored.

Kujikiri21


	12. Chapter 11

The Wild Campione

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Campione

Hey folks,

First of all, thank you to all my followers for your encouragement and criticism alike. This is especially directed towards you, Nameless. I have attempted to take your advice on board and hopefully what changes I do make in my writing will meet with your approval. That said, please be forgiving, especially with my romantic interaction scenes. Coming from someone who has never had a date in his life, I am trying.

Next up, to WarGamer08.

GET BACK TO ME WITH THE AUTHORITY!

Without your final input with the agreed upon Authority, I will find it difficult to write up the Arc. I need all my pieces if I want to build a jigsaw.

Lastly, and this is a question for everyone who reads my story, what are your thoughts in either having Harry killing Voban at some point in the story or making Voban a bit less of a beast that he is perceived to be and allying with Harry or perhaps being an older friend?

Tell me what you think.

PS Doni's Authority that he gained from Gugalanna will be in the next chapter.

Now on with the show...

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A massive hand came crashing down on the oaken table with an ear splitting crack.

"It was a trick!" Growled a very pissed off Russian national, his face flushed scarlet with anger and moustache bristling, "A trap! The bitch laid out bait on a hook and we fell for it line and sinker!"

"Calm yourself, Alexei" soothed the raven haired Keeper, reaching from her seat to stroke the bulging forearm of her friend in an attempt to relax him, "What is done, is done. All we can do is rectify it in whatever manner we can.

It was now the small hours of the day after the quake and before the sun was due to arise, leaving the air stained a delicate violet and gray in the pre-dawn. After Harry had screamed for a small amount of time, his heart filled with anguish, he had managed to pull himself together enough to communicate with Alexei and Morraine and get them back to the castle, post haste.

The two had arrived to what could only be considered as horror. The boy they had taken in, who had treated them as if they were his own parents, regardless of blood or station, was sitting, staring into oblivion, his face blank and detached, among the wreckage of his friend's quarters and bodies of his fallen subordinates. Salvatore, who had been grimly standing to side, his mind berating himself for not seeing the possibility, watched as the two had marshalled all the discipline they had attained over the years and gently led the young boy, despite him being a Campione, to a small adjacent chamber and placed him at a table with Doni following close behind. Morraine had then comforted the detached boy in her arms while Alexei had then moved off to spread the information and get things under control elsewhere. Doni merely leaned against the wall with a sympathetic gaze at his little brother.

They all stayed that way until Alexei was finally able to finish all the arrangements, the only noises heard were those of the rest of the Assembly arriving and taking care of their fallen but not disturbing the small group. He then joined them bringing them all to the present.

"I should have known," Harry hollowly whispered, his voice seeming to have been snatched away by the same entity that had taken Alice, "the timing was too convenient and the identity of the rampaging beast should have tipped me off. Gugalanna was the consort of Ereshkigal before it was killed by Gilgamesh and Enkidu."

"There is no point in recriminations now," Morraine spoke again, slightly tired of the pointless comments, "Let's move forward and decide on the next course of action."

"That's the simple thing," idly said the Italian, still leaning against wall, "Locate the bitch, stop the bitch, kill the bitch and rescue the damsel. Simple."

Silence met the remark as all the others looked at him as if he was a flying purple people eater.

Made of marshmallows.

Even the hollowed eyed version of Harry seemed to give him the weird eye.

"I think," Morraine began hesitantly, as she voiced the others thoughts, not quite believing that the Campione was that dense, "that our plans require a bit more... content than what you have said."

"Why?" the Campione asked, honestly puzzled that such a simple plan would require more thought.

"Never mind." sighed the Keeper exasperatedly.

"Either way," the tall Russian interjected, "we still need to wait on the information from the Rookery before we can advance to the next step."

This was met by firm nods amongst the others, though the Campiones only gave theirs reluctantly. Doni, because of his eagerness to do battle once more. Harry, because he anxiously wanted to save his first friend from a possible fate worse than death and the fact that he could barely raise his head out of tiredness, the raw power he expended that day compounding with the immature state of his body causing a great deal of stress, even with his Campione's constitution.

Morraine sighed softly, "You may as well go to bed, my lord." she said to her little lord, "your body is tired and needs its rest."

"I'll be fine," he snapped, angry that she would ask such a thing from him at a time like this, "I want to be here when the news arrives and act quickly to save Alice. I refuse to abandon her when I have the chance to make a difference."

Whilst Morraine was sympathetic to the young man's plight and understood the sheer anguish his slightly hysteric voice carried in his words, she was firm in her desires. Which, at this moment, was seeing to her young lord's health, even if he didn't want any part of it. Though it it would be a hard struggle to do so, considering his obstinate nature and the unresolved feelings she knew he had for the missing Hime-Miko.

Luckily, Alexei was there to back her up.

"Harry," he said gently, gaining the boy's undivided attention, unused to the man using his given name, "I know you are distraught and I share that feeling, even if it is not on the same level as your own. But you must _think_," the giant Russian emphasized with a thump of the table with his meaty paw, "if you were stay as you are; covered in your own gore and dirt, your muscles heavy with fatigue and your power reserves almost depleted, and then, upon receiving the news, rush off half-cocked to face down the goddess, then I can guarantee you this.

**_You. Will. Fail!_**"

His final words were made more more important with a loud yell that had everyone standing, or sitting, straighter as the soldier gave the young man a firm understanding of the current situation from his vast experience in the field.

The large bear-like man took in the wide yet stomach twistingly hollow eyes of his King before letting his flushed face slowly relax. He had not meant to give the harsh truth to the young man but, as an advisor to a King, especially a younger one, he could not allow his personal feelings or desires get in the way of the truth.

"I don't mean to be harsh, my lord," the Stal'lider rumbled, "but as you are now, even with the honourable Lord Salvatore's aid, you and those you lead against our adversary will lose. With that loss, Alice would not be saved and she would be used and discarded like trash.

"But," here the mammoth man spread his arms broadly, as if indicating a large area, "if you were to rest up, look at the situation with clear eyes and thought, with a refreshed body. Then I have no doubt that you will succeed in bringing the young lady back."

A heavy silence met the great man's final declaration as the Russian's serious ice blue eyes locked with an anguished green one. The gazes were locked for more than a minute before the green one gave way first as it dropped to the scarlet carpet.

Alexei grimaced inwardly. The young man looked as if the world was on his shoulders at that moment.

"Fine," Harry said resignedly as he slowly hauled himself to his tired feet, "I will rest for now, but," the child Campione's eyes sharpened suddenly, their hollow anguish vanishing momentarily "I expect to be awoken immediately when news arrives. Are we clear?" The last words were given with the air of authority that had been absent in his anguish but also held a hint of danger, warning the listening magi that to not follow the command would result in very harsh consequences.

"Of course, your majesty," spoke Morraine, her tone soft and slightly submissive. Some thing that wasn't usually heard from the proud and powerful woman.

A slight nod to his fellow Godslayer and the young Campione, his steps firm, left the room to rest in his abode, the wooden door clicking closed behind him.

Silence permeated the room as he had left. The remaining people looking after him with troubled gazes.

Hopefully the news would be here soon enough. But long enough for their brother/King/son to get some rest.

For war would come and follow in his footsteps once it was received.

Far away, beyond the sea, a beautiful goddess dwelling in the damp darkness felt a chill run over her spine and fear clutched her heart for a brief moment before vanishing as quickly as it came.

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Harry slept like the dead. Deep and endless. His tired body, mind and spirit recovering from the strain that was placed upon during the brief battle with Gugalanna. His body still, tranquil and peaceful in its state of repose.

SPLASH!

"ARGGGHH! WHAT THE HELL!"

At least until he received a very rude awakening.

Harry practically launched himself form out of his blankets, his sopping wet torso laid bare for the culprit to see as the young King sat up in his bed.

Harry snarled in fury as he beheld the smirking face of his annoying self proclaimed older brother holding an empty wine bucket, wishing upon him an endless torment.

"You have ten seconds," he hissed, the water that was on him seeming to almost float off as tough it were steam because of his anger, "use them wisely or I will have a Campione pelt hanging on my wall."

Doni only laughed slightly at the fierce young man, his ire not phasing him at all, idly tossing the bucket into a nearby basket with a rattling clang before sobering slightly.

"And here I thought you wanted to be awoken when the news arrived," the tanned swordsman said with a slight mocking edge. These words brought the British born boy the remainder of the way awake and swiftly leapt out of his bed towards his dresser upon which was his laid out with his battle gear, ready to adorn its master once more.

The fact that he slept unclothed was of no concern to him, nor that a relative stranger was in his room as he hurriedly dressed.

Doni, on the other hand, had spun around to face the door after the short glimpse of his little brother's 'package'. His face a bright scarlet as he squawked in embarrassment.

"Have some modesty!" He cried, "no one wants to see you in your birthday suit!"

"Then learn some manners," Harry snapped back as he once more pulled on the leather strap for his spear, having restored it to its former glory with his Authority, "if you had knocked like any other civilised being you could have avoided seeing me so.

"Besides," Harry smirked as he strapped on the large boots, "you're one to talk about 'modesty'. I distinctly remember a certain Italian, that shall remain nameless, forgetting to cover himself with a towel when he answered his door for a messenger. The maid was blushing for a week afterward."

"That was an accident," the King of Swords cried out in protest, "I didn't expect for a stranger to be knocking on the door."

Harry raised an eyebrow in disbelief with a cock of his head as he finished girding himself for war, his black hair still in the braid from last night swaying with the head tilt.

"That fact it was a stranger who knocked is what your protesting about?" Harry said with bewilderment and resignation, "what if it was someone of your acquaintance?"

"Then there would be no problem," answered the swordsman without a trace of doubt.

Harry just stood there, fully dressed finally, and stared at an innocently grinning moron. Sometimes, despite being their peer, he could not understand the sheer unadulterated quirkiness they all had in some form or another. He honestly felt that he truly was the only sane/normal one of the bunch.

At least the voice in his head said so...

"Let's just go," he finally sighed as he strode out of the room alongside the Italian bred idiot, his feet planting on the floor firmly, marching with purpose, resolve illuminating his now tensed visage.

"They're in the library," a now sober Salvatore said, "when I had left they were still talking with the rookery's spokesperson via the Crystal Orbs you guys have to get all the details they could. The mermaid said she wouldn't give the exact place until you were in the room. Apparently, she trusts most humans about as far as she could toss Everest."

Harry grunted slightly as they both moved down the great staircase leading to the main hall, "Not surprising really. That particular rookery has had a great deal of trouble with the Warlocks due to the historical sights of magical significance in the area. The Warlocks' government believed that such 'half-breeds' shouldn't be allowed to 'pollute' such places. Some of the private citizens have captured some of her people to interrogate them about possible items or treasure that has been rumoured to be in the vicinity." Harry grimaced slightly, "none of the sessions had a happy result for either party but at least the Warlocks were able to walk away hale and hearty. The Merpeople... not so much."

Doni grunted in understanding as they arrived at the great doors leading to the Alexandria. He too had had run ins with a few of the Warlock caste and was far from amused at such a callous and selfish culture. He admitted to himself that he would sometimes disregard the well being of others when he wanted a good fight but he was also a Campione and, thus, had a responsibility that he carried out to save and protect those who could not fight what he could and the right to do what he wished to fulfil it.

The fact that he could quench his battle lust at the same time was just a bonus.

But these Warlocks... Salvatore wasn't sure if they were greedy and controlling beyond all comprehension or just mind numbingly stupid in their pursuit of whatever-ever-it-was-they-wanted.

He was frankly thinking it was both.

Harry stepped ahead of his 'brother' and pushed the doors open slowly with a ponderous groaning squeal of old wood on metal hinges making him wince slightly at the noise.

"Note to self," he grumbled quietly, "get that door oiled. Soon."

The sight that greeted him as he opened the great doors would have been comforting had the situation been different. The library, which had almost been demolished the previous night, was now almost back to its previous condition. The bookcases were back in place and the books themselves were shelved once more and any lingering debris had been cleaned up. If it were not for a few missing items, the scorch marks and recently repaired holes in the floor or wall, then he wouldn't have known that it had been destroyed.

He only gave the place a once over look before locking his eyes in one the corners of the room.

Just along from the crystal balls that he had used to communicate with the goblins the other night, within the corner was a small group people seated around a large stone pillar upon which was seated three crystal balls organized in a triangle in small depressions on the top of the pillar. Beams of light emitted from the three orbs before meeting in the middle of them and creating a large holographic-like picture of a stereotypical mermaid that seemed to be speaking harshly to those assembled before her despite being too far away to here her voice. Though the active spells he could sense around the area may have something to do with it.

It was like a magical version of a cross between a video conference and the Holo-net communications in the Star Wars franchise.

'They're using the Three Pillar Orbs?' Harry questioned himself as he and his Italian companion went to join the small group, 'Interesting... But appropriate.'

He studied the mermaid as he approached them. Long red hair that swayed and floated as if in water with beautiful sea green eyes, similar but not quite the same as his own, on soft and unblemished and milky pale skin. The face was shaped as a heart and the nose was button like. Her torso was bare save for two large half clam shells attached to some sort of string that was placed over her large breasts in an attempt to give a form of modesty.

Judging from the drooling visage of most of the male (and some female) magi in the room as they stood stock still in the middle of a task, it was not entirely successful.

Her lower body was a large fish tail that began at the waist. The beautiful scales were an iridescent blue that almost created rainbows as she moved in the image.

It almost looked like Ariel had stepped into the real world from out of the pages of Disney.

As the two Godslayers approached the small corner they felt a small tingle of magic wash over them and were suddenly able to hear the words that the mermaid was speaking.

"-and I refuse to say anymore until the young Potter is in my presence!" the harsh yet melodic and watery voice of the irate red head spoke haughtily.

"Then it is good I am already here," Harry interrupted dryly, causing the three seated before the image of the watery denizen to jump slightly in surprise and twist in their seats to face him, revealing the faces of Julian, Morraine and Anya.

"My lord," they murmured with a dip of their heads in respect.

"Ladies," he responded with a slight nod before looking at the now interested mermaid.

"I am here now, child of the sea," he spoke, authority and majesty coloring his slightly dark tone, "reveal your information that you and yours have obtained."

The red head eyed the young boy before her image critically, girded for war with jade eyes as hard as stone, his posture screamed for respect. There was also a sense of power (and oh what power) about him that she could feel, even being hundreds of miles away and having only an image of herself before him. These all gave an indication that he was far from an ordinary man child.

It was, however, the scruffy fringe of his hair that clinched his identity.

The Potter's cursed hair struck once more.

"Very well, your majesty," the aquatic maiden said with a slight bow at her scaled waist before rising straight once more, "at the request of your association some days ago, we have searched our waters for the presence you indicated would be there. For some time we had found nothing out of the ordinary until, by chance, one of our more experienced Hunters came upon the heavy scent of human blood mixing with the sea. Heavy enough that, when she followed it to the source, the water became a deep crimson, almost black, cloud. Still swimming, with her head above the waterline so as not to take in any of the foul water, she eventually came upon a small island she knew of barely a stones throw from the main island of the British. The blood led to a huge gaping cave that runs through the island and filled completely at high tide and was revealed at the low. She was also able to feel an almost suffocating amount of magic that wasn't there when she was last in the area."

As she paused for breath, Harry felt his heart grow cold as realisation dawned. He knew that the island the woman spoke of was in South-West Britain. A cave like that was a unique feature and with an island so close to the mainland, the only place he could think of that matched that description was...

The mermaid continued on heedless of the horror on her Campione's face.

"The Hunter was able to identify the place, according to humans, as Tintagel. More specifically, the Goddess is using [Merlin's Cave]."

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_Drip. Drop._

The cave was slowly filling with water from the ocean's depths. The tides had turned and it was now rising. At the peak of its arc, the tidal water completely engulf the great stone cave that ran under the small island.

_Drip. Drop_.

At least it would have.

The water was currently held back by a large black cloud, at both ends of the tunnel, that were nonetheless solid, acting like a cork in a wine bottle, stopping things from entering or leaving.

Plunging the cave into complete darkness.

Save for an almost sullen green glow from the centre of the round table before her.

_Drip. Drop_.

Alice sighed in aggravation as she grumbled to herself about the tight chains and the uncomfortable chair they tied her to. The green light she was forced to stare at making her remember how she came to this place.

**Flashback**

_It had happened so quickly. One moment she and the rest of those left behind to hold down the fort were working diligently in cleaning up the library from the quake, then she was hit a vision. Hard and fast._

_The world blurred into a grayscale version of itself. She was frozen still, her mind calmly and clinically taking in the small details within the vision. A clock on the wall showing that is only minutes, at best, in the future, the placement of the squads as they moved about cleaning the debris and various others._

_Then they came._

_Out of the shadows and through the floor, heedless of the various magical and mundane defences designed to prevent such blatant infiltration, they burst and immediately began to cut down the members of the association present, their weapons swinging and their large horns dancing in the grey of the vision. The vision ended with the last person being cut down and the group then advancing on her still recovering from surprise body._

_When she had come out of the vision she was already moving. Disregarding whatever chain of command there was amongst them, she ordered them to group together and prepare for an attack._

_Considering that she looked dead serious and was leaking magic like a broken faucet... They obeyed._

_Swiftly._

_It was not a minute later that they greeted their first unwelcome visitor._

_With enough spell fire to level a house._

_Unfortunately the Gallu was able to weather the storm of spells and attack once more, though it was damaged. From then on it was battle of fire and retreat against the demon servants of the death goddess. Numerous attempts were made to contact the outside by various members only to met with nothing. They had been cut off from the world in some manner. Alice had even attempted to pray to Harry in hopes of activating his [Light Messenger] Authority, only to be met with failure._

_Soon they had been herded up to the accommodation wing, which had only a single hall with doors to the rooms. There was no back way out. Alice was forced to retreat into her room, letting go of the [Ectoplasmic Sword] spell she was using to fight of the beasts, pretty much her only really offensive spell save for her sealing arts. Her companions had urged her to go out the window of her room as they sought to buy her time. Her last glimpse of their faces before the door was closed showed only the determination to protect. She wasted no time and hurried to the window as the sound of fighting, spell fire and screams of pain mingled with the metallic stench of spilled blood. She would not let their sacrifice be in vain. As she threw open the great French doors leading onto the balcony she would jump off to reach the ground and hopefully be able to run for help or hide, she got the shock of her life to find someone standing directly in the middle of where the doors opened, the woman backed by contradictory glowing pane of darkness._

_She had frozen a moment in surprise and that had cost her dearly._

_A swift movement of one the strangers heavily bangled hands and she suddenly had the air driven from her lungs causing her to collapse and begin to lose conciousness. Before she faded the woman spoke with a voice both harsh and chiming like a discordant bell._

_"Rest," the woman- no, Deity- crooned, "rest and dream of the future. One that you shall bring about after you had prevented it once before."_

_Her last thoughts had been of her friend._

**End Flashback**

And now she was tied to chair, in a damp cave and staring at a glowing green orb floating slightly above the centre of large round table.

She snorted softly to herself. She had had better days.

Gentle chiming of jewellery interrupted her thoughts as, out of the corner of her eyes the Goddess emerged from the shadows of the entrance.

Clad in in scarlet wear, a long and wide strip of cloth falling over the front and rear of lower body, covering her pale milk white sex and backside with her well formed outer thighs and legs showing from the gaps between the two strips that were attached by a string around her waist. Her breasts were hidden by another bolt of crimson cloth that covered them and twisted around the elbows of her arms but leaving her back bare, like a diaphanous scarf. The wrists and ankles were adorned with beautiful rings of lapis lazuli. A head dress of gold sat atop the midnight black and silken hair that ran to her waist. Her sharp, amused and calculatively cruel blue eyes piercing the tied up Hime-miko as she stared down her aquiline nose at her captive. Her ruby lips were pursed in annoyance as she strode barefoot towards Alice, her unpainted and claw like nails tapping against her folded arms.

Any red blooded male would have called her 'sex on legs'.

Women would have called her 'slut'.

Alice thought she was a 'black widow'.

"One must admit," spoke the Goddess as she came into the Princess' personal space and looked her in the eyes, relieving the Hime-miko from staring at the light, "thou didst not show what power this one believed thou had."

"I assure you, Goddess" she answered, seemingly calm and unruffled, as if the chair and chains meant nothing, "I am quite a capable person. Just not as much in the arena of battle,"

"Truth," the deity cooed, her divine breath washing over the young woman's cheeks with a shiver, "but didst thou not defeat and seal one of Steel?" The goddess giggled softly, "surely thou wouldst have needed some form of might?"

Alice frowned ever so slightly, to her the Heretic's manner was odd. One moment she would act haughty, then stare into space and completely reverse her actions by acting like an old fashioned teenager.

Alice got the feeling that the Great Lady Under Earth wasn't calling the shots...

"Why do you want me?" Alice asked, ignoring the line of thought, it would not help her at that moment, and attempted to find out the reason for her abduction, "you have used a great deal of power to obtain my person, what do you want it for, especially alive?"

A slow smirk covered the Goddess' face, feral and vicious, twisting her visage to point it became inhuman.

"Dost thou know what it means to be yoked?" She hissed as the shadows on the cave walls rippled, agitated by their mistress' volatile emotions, "to be seated upon a throne and then placed under the foot of man. This one has. Time and again. This one has risen and fallen, risen and fallen. Once Queen, then servant, then Queen once more. Only to fall beneath the yoke of Steel again."

Realisation erupted in Alice's mind.

'She is a Divine Ancestor?! But how could she have such pow-' her thoughts froze for a moment before she shivered as another thought took hold, 'a Divine Ancestor that has either regained or retained her power. Fuck' she uttered uncharacteristically, her emotions of fear and terror pushing her composure to the limits.

The goddess went on, up heeding of her captives struggling mind, her face still in the Miko's, "I was a great queen that ruled all that was under after I was separated from my sister. She took on the role of passion, of life. I was the darkness and death. Then He came to conquer me and succeeded, pulling me under the yoke of Steel. Time passed. Over the years He had changed his forms but still retained his Steel, his Rule and myself. But things changed, I was changed. What was once one became three and I was made whole once more. The yoke was thrown off and even more power was granted to this one. Then the Bastard rose. From my own people the Bastard rose and twisted them against me, preaching of another God, so similar to Him, and denouncing me and all my faces as false. And so the yoke, similar yet different was placed upon me, limiting but not binding me. A worse insult than even my first term of service. But still my other faces, in far flung places, kept me strong.

"Then the world spoke to me. Showing me the images of the recent past. Of a woman, weak and sickly, standing against a God, young and Steel, and sealing him away."

Alice felt herself grow cold.

"A God," the Goddess cooed, he face relaxed to its normal beauty, "that fought for justice and righteousness. One who could sever what chains I have left.

"And weak enough to allow me to slip my own chains on him."

Alice eyes widened in shock. An Earth Goddess binding a Steel Deity?! That went against all she had been taught about Divine Theory. Similar but not quite like in rock, paper, scissors some Divine Origins, like Steel or Earth, had a weakness or a disadvantage to another type. In this case, Steel trumps Earth. To get around such a base rule of Divinity then a lot of power would be needed. A specific type of power that can mitigate a Steel deity's raw divine power that few could match.

Power that Alice had.

Alice's unique Hime-Miko gift was difficult to explain but the results were evident. The Witengamot called it [Demilitarisation]. It was what allowed her to, with only a great deal of help, bind and seal the Heretic God, King Arthur Pendragon, if not kill him outright. It is able to quell aggressive actions in her vicinity passively by removing the feeling of aggression and conflict from its hosts and actively was able to divert the concept of 'harm' from herself and others if it was made by violence. This power allowed her to 'sheath a sword' as it were. It also made her magic have a degree of Anti-Steel properties. In conjunction with a rare secondary gift, [Soul Travel] which allowed her seperate her soul from her body and give it form, she is able enshroud anything that has the property of Steel with her soul and battle directly with its essence and, if she overcomes it, seal it away into an object.

Against a normal spell or human artefact of such type it is no problem due to her raw power and the lack of it in the spell itself. Objects and curses made by rituals or ceremonies she could overcome with effort.

Deities were another matter however.

It was only out of sheer desperation and dumb luck that she was able to seal, King Arthur. He was a young deity, one of the youngest known in fact, and as such did not have the raw amount of power the older ones had. He was also a Steel deity and as such was at least minimally affected by the affinity of her magic. If he was another type or older... She would have been a stain on the grass.

As it was her body was rendered bedridden and weak and she was forced to continuously reinforce the emerald pendant she had sealed the God within, making her health decline even more due to the raw power her body needed to channel to do so. If it weren't for that then Harry's apples would have healed her completely and would never had to be bedridden by heavy magic use again.

And this deity wanted it. And as a bonus wanted to release the Deity she sealed away in the first place.

Ereshkigal continued her speech, striding away from the tied up woman and towards the round table occupied by unconscious and restrained people.

"With thine aid, this one will give the young Steel freedom from thy prison. Out of gratitude, he shall cut what remains of the bonds that hold this one and then, this one shall restrain, chain and bind such a handsome specimen as my own."

The smile on her face became a deathly grin, corrupted and false.

"And thy life shall act as the catalyst."

Ereshkigal watched as the White Princess began to shake, her chains rattling in response to the fear that flowed like river from the restrained female. The green glow of the orb on the table behind her giving her an unearthly and spectral prescense that was twisted into darkness by the wide grin.

"Enjoy thy last moments, little Witch." She said as she left the Miko to stew, "come the twilight, thy life shall be no more."

Rich laughter echoed around the dim cave system, a cacophony that sent spines trembling with fear.

Leaving a Princess slumped in her chains, awaiting her death.

The stalactite, high above, cared not for the silently weeping Princess as its own tears fell.

_Drip. Drop_.

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Okay folks, how did you like the chapter? Not much action in this one but that will all change in the next one.

A quick request for all of my dedicated readers. I am currently tossing up whether to have Harry either obtain an Authority like Verethragna's (most probably from Vishnu), encounter a sentient weapon god like Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi (possibly either Sharur the mace of Ninurta, Areadbhar the slaughtering spear of Lugh or some other) or maybe both. Considering that Harry already has other Authorities having both options may be a bit overkill. Let me know what you think and any ideas you might have for either the sentient weapon or wheel authority role.

As always please review. All flames will be devoured by Ammit.

Thanks,  
kujikiri21


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